Play by your own rules

What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the PW Podcast. I'm your host, Peter Witham. You can find me and this podcast at peterwitham.com. This episode, we're gonna be talking about rules, more specifically, the rules you choose to follow and the ones that you choose to apply to yourself.

What am I talking about here? Okay. Doesn't matter who you are and what you do. We've all got to follow rules. Right?

But there are rules you have to follow because that's the way it is. You gotta follow the traffic rules. You gotta follow other rules in life. It's just the way it is. Right?

But then there's rules that we apply to ourselves. Now, of course, what I'm talking about here is whatever your pursuits are, whether it's business, personal, whatever, There's rules that you apply to yourself and you follow. And I'll give you a few examples to try and explain. There are complementary color rules, for example, in art and design. There are musical rules.

Right? Certain chords go together and certain notes that you shouldn't play over the top of other chords because it sounds weird. There are business rules, all these kind of things. Right? If you spend more than a few seconds on the Internet, I guarantee you someone has tried to impose a rule on you saying that this is the way you should do it.

Right? Geography has 1. The rule of thirds is a well known one, for example. And these all should all be treated as suggestions is what I'm telling you here. The rules that really matter are the ones that you choose to apply to yourself, and that's how it should work.

Now, okay, the results might not be what you are hoping for, but, hey, at least you're following the rules you laid out for yourself. If you go around following rules that other people tell you you should follow because, hey, maybe someone told them, maybe they just wanna be one of the cool kids or whatever it is. Doesn't mean it's gonna apply to you, doesn't mean it's gonna work for you. You have to do you. Right?

You also have to accept that, hey, the consequences are gonna be what they're gonna be. But if you start everything following rules laid out by other people and trying to stay within those boundaries and hitting a brick wall on your creativity or whatever it may be, business practices or marketing, I don't know, whatever it is, right, and you hit walls, then it's not working for you. Right? If we all just followed the same set of rules, the world would go nowhere and nothing would progress and we'd have nothing new because it would all be constricted to a set of rules that never change. People break rules and create new things and new trends, new ways of thinking, new sciences, whatever it is, you name it.

It's those folks that choose to say, you know what? Those rules are great, but I'm gonna go my way, that end up making the difference. Now I'm saying that this is something you should do for yourself. Don't go breaking laws or anything like that. I'm not saying that.

And certainly, be aware of rules that apply to whatever you're doing. But it doesn't mean you have to use them to constrict your thinking. And this is something that I always do. And like I say, it goes both ways. But by doing that, psychologically, subconsciously, you're telling yourself, do whatever the hell you want and see where it goes.

And you never know what the results may be. So always play by your own rules. Just because everybody else is doing something a particular way does not mean you have to do that. Be the one that breaks it. Be the one that explores a new avenue.

Okay. Maybe it works out. Next thing you know, everybody's doing what you're doing. Fine. Whatever.

Still. Just do it the way you wanna do it. Don't suddenly find that because what you're doing, everybody else is doing it now and that's great. That's the new set of rules. Hey, break them again.

That's what I'm telling you. Always be looking to find new avenues, new ways to do things and ignoring the ways that just don't resonate with you. Okay? That's my advice in this episode. It's very quick.

It's very short. I just want you to make the most of the way you wanna do things. And to do that, you've got to allow yourself to ignore those external influences and say, screw it. I think this is what I wanna do and go do that. Hope this works out for you.

Let me know. Reach out to me. Peterwitham.com/contact. Maybe you've made your own rules and it worked out great. I would love to hear and celebrate that with you.

Maybe you made your own rules and it didn't work out. Great. Let's talk about that too and understand why it didn't work. But at least you went your own way. That's the message I'm trying to get here.

That's it, folks. I will speak to you in the next episode.