Four rules that shape your behavior

I was walking along the marina a few days ago and I saw two friends walking their two dogs. The dogs were the same breed (Barbet, check it out if you don’t know this breed, they are so cute!), one white and one brown. 

I was looking at them because it was so funny to observe their behavior, the white one was all over the place pulling the leash, crossing over, stopping all around, sniffing and curious all the time, and the owner let the dog do its own thing… 

The brown one was the opposite, always by the owner’s side, walking at the same pace and not going around, the owner obviously had trained the dog, and was carrying him on a short leash. 

Two similar dogs, two different behaviors.

As I was looking at them it got me thinking about human behavior and all the rules that we have around us that shape how we behave.

I realized that we all have many rules that we follow, and that sometimes we wish we were like the white dog, curious, open going around like we are not following any rules, but many times we are just so “domesticated” that we keep ourselves in a short leash and we don’t allow ourselves to venture out of our comfort zone.

What are these rules that shape your behavior? 

After thinking about it, I think that there are four big groups of rules.

First: Rules that you follow to stay alive and live in a society. 

These are the common agreements that we all follow that make our society work and stop us from living in a chaotic mess. 

Things like traffic rules, so you drive in an agreed lane, you stop when the traffic light turns red and you follow all the traffic signs (hopefully…). 

Also, under this same category of rules are the laws that each society creates, rules about property, about freedom, about human rights… 

These rules are helpful and so ingrained on us that we don’t have to spend much energy trying to obey them or remembering them. 

You know that you have to stop on red, that you should look each side or the road before crossing it. You know that you shouldn’t steal and that you should treat others with respect.

You also know that if you don’t follow the rules there are consequences and you agree to that. 

Second: Rules that you make for yourself.

These are your own rules. The ones you have been establishing in your life as you learn and grow. These are things like what are the type of people you want to be around, why you choose to live in a certain place, why you choose a certain car, the type of look you choose for yourself…

These might not seem like rules, maybe you call them choices, but I believe that behind every choice there is a rule that made you select that choice. Imagine that you are choosing your outfit for the day, you select a specific pair of pants, top and jacket and you know which shoes you are going to wear it with. This might seem like a simple choice that you are making, but if you think about it, you chose those specific clothes because you have your own style. And that style is your rule. You decided that you want to look in a certain way and project a certain look, you placed a rule for the way you want to look. 

Normally these type of rules evolve with you as you grow and change your lifestyle and way of thinking. You develop new tastes, want to meet different people, like to try new styles…

These rules are not set in stone, you don’t feel so strongly attached to them and you can change them as you want.

Third: Rules that you “should” follow but you don’t. 

It depends on each person but we all have a list of “shoulds” going around in our minds… I should do this, I should do that…

These are the type of things that you feel like you should be doing but you can’t get yourself to commit to do for any number of reasons. 

Sometimes it sounds like: I should lose weight, I should wake up earlier, I should call my family more often, I should be more patient, I should drink less alcohol, I should quit smoking, I should exercise more, I should…, I should…, I should…

Of course, there are also the negative “shoulds”, I shouldn’t be like that, I shouldn’t wear that, I shouldn’t eat that…

As I said, there are many of these rules that we think we should be following but we don’t. 

The problem with these rules is that they are energy drains. They show up in the back of your mind whenever you are doing something and they divert your thoughts and stop you from enjoying your current activity because you think you should be doing something else…

These set of rules have to do with expectations. The expectations we set on how things should be, how we should be, how others should be, how the world should be…and then, we are torn and disappointed when our expectations are not met…

The way to deal with these energy drains is first to acknowledge that they are there. 

What are the expectations that you have set for yourself and the world around you? Are you setting real expectations or are you setting unachievable expectations? 

When you realize that you have certain expectations about you, others, how things should be, is time to ask yourself and check how can you meet all these expectations. Is there anything you can do to meet your expectations? If there are things that you can do, then is time for action. But if you realize that you don’t want to do them or that those expectations make no sense, it might be time to let them go and free up your energy. 

Fourth: Rules that you don’t even know you have. 

Have you ever thought of yourself as a perfectionist? Have you ever been triggered by some harmless comment? Do you tend to judge others? Are you extremely critical with yourself? Are you a people pleaser, or a helper, or the boss? 

All of these behaviors tend to be rooted in some of the most dangerous rules that we have. These are the most dangerous of all the rules because of most of the time we are unaware that we have them. These are what we call beliefs. The things that we adopted when we were young and we never stopped to question. 

The beliefs that we must be “good boys or good girls” the belief that if we cause trouble we will not be loved, the belief that we are not enough…

These rules run in our unconscious mind and will run our behavior if we are not aware that they are there. 

As far as these beliefs, there are different types, the ones that don’t affect us either way, the empowering beliefs and the negative beliefs. 

The beliefs that are neutral and the empowering beliefs are not the ones that will cause you much trouble. The problem is when your beliefs are negative, such as the ones mentioned before. Believing things like: “I must be obedient or I will not be loved”, “I am not smart”, “I am always trouble”, “I am not enough”, stop you from becoming your best version. 

They run in the background and when you least expect it they stop you from making progress. Suddenly you self-sabotage yourself and you get stuck. You stop yourself from showing up who you really are because you don’t want to disappoint others. You don’t apply for a job because you are not smart enough. You judge others because you don’t feel enough…

So, what do you do to stop this scripts from running your behavior?

One of the first things to do is bring awareness to your triggers. Do you know how do you react under certain circumstances? Is there some people that make you feel in a certain way? Do you judge others often? Do you compare to others all the time?

Start paying attention to those type of behaviors and ask yourself, what is that I believe about myself that is making me feel this way right now? 

A good way to do this is by journaling, writing down all the thoughts that come to your mind when you ask yourself that question. Let them flow freely and do it repeatedly. 

After a couple of weeks of doing this writing you can start to see if there are some behaviors and thoughts that show up often. Are there any repeated beliefs that keep on showing up? When you identify them, your next step is to challenge them. 

To do this you take each of the negative beliefs and answer them in a realistic, nonjudgmental manner. The trick here is to acknowledge the negative beliefs that you have and to challenge them in a positive way, acknowledging that there might be a limitation but also indicating how you will overcome it.

Some people believe that is best to ignore these negative beliefs and just simply repeat positive statements. But to me, the issue when you simply replace negative statements with positive ones, is that you still feel the resistance inside of you because you don’t really believe what you are saying and the negative voice will not be quiet.  

On the other hand, by openly addressing the limitations and challenging them with a positive action you are giving yourself a way out and not ignoring the negative belief. 

To give you and idea of how this works, let’s say that your negative voice is telling you that you are lazy. Your challenge to this would be something like: “I know that I haven’t very productive and working towards my goals, but I intend to change this now and I’m making progress taking small steps everyday.”

So, are you aware of your own limiting beliefs, have you identified your own leash? Are you keeping yourself open and curious or are you toned down because of your unknown beliefs? Are you the white dog or the brown dog?

Have you identified what rules are shaping your behavior? Are you aware of any of your limiting beliefs? How did you discover them? And did you get rid of them? Share with me below, I’d love to know!

xoxo,

Sofia

image by Johnell_Pannell