My name may not rhyme with Pordan Jeterson. But I can still have my own rules for life, right? These 11 have worked well for me so far.
1. Don’t be a jerk
If this were the school of life and “don’t be a jerk” was Slide 1, at least three hands would shoot up.
Why? Because somehow, that one’s still tricky for some people.
Even when you’re in a funk, force a smile and push through it. Keeping your game face can actually help lift you out of it. Sure, popping off on someone might feel satisfying for a second. But unless you’re totally disconnected from your emotions, you’re probably going to feel worse afterward. At home, if Laura or I are in a bad mood (which is rare—we’re usually pretty upbeat), we try to call it out and keep ourselves in check.
2. If things are going poorly, do something about it
In my short stint in marriage counseling, my therapist said something I never forgot: “If you have a problem with someone and you haven’t told them, it is your problem, not theirs.” I’ve seen so many unhappy couples just riding it out, stuck in something that already feels awful. They’re too scared to fix it or step off entirely—even though the ride’s already rough. And this goes beyond marriage. Be proactive. Lean into life. Big problems rarely sort themselves out on their own.
3. Shower before bed
And if needed, I’ll shower before work too.
At some point, I just fell in love with the feeling of being clean. I can’t stand crawling into bed feeling grimy. Honestly, as a guy, this helped a lot when it came to dating. Good hygiene goes a long way—and apparently, some guys skip the shower and just spray on cologne. That doesn’t count. You can usually spot bad hygiene by one giveaway line: “I only shower when I need to.” If life were a game of Dungeons and Dragons, good hygiene gives you a solid +5 to charisma right away.
4. Always be ready to change things up
Life is fluid. Even if things are going great and you feel like you’re firing on all cylinders, switching up your routine can greatly boost your mood. This rule is my biggest weakness. I’m working on it. If you’re anything like me—a hardcore creature of habit—it’s easy to get stuck in your patterns. But too much sameness dulls even the best parts of life.
5. Stay humble
Anytime I’ve let my ego get too big, life lunges back at me like an angry serpent, telling me to sit down. It’s as the old proverb reads, “Pride cometh before the fall.” The best thing about staying humble is you don’t have to worry about getting knocked down a peg. I’ve never heard anyone say, “You know what I loved about them? Their overconfidence.”
6. Do the hardest part done first
I’ve found that it’s way easier to stay motivated this way. You don’t go through your day feeling like the hardest task is hanging over your head. With writing, I try to finish a polished set of sentences before I finish outlining the remainder of an article. That way, I don’t feel like I’m working in the abstract, with nebulous ideas that aren’t actually hashed out yet. It’s usually the easier stuff is all that’s left.
7. Leave people better than you found them
I’ve read countless articles about toxic ex-boyfriends and husbands. It makes me wonder: is it the same handful of dudes going around scaring people? The disproportionate impact of a few bad eggs is quite staggering. On a lighter note, it reminds me of the old Onion headline, “Job Shortage Is Tied to One Man With 40,000 Jobs.” I never want to look back and think I was the reason someone’s day went south, or why they needed therapy. My parents always told me to leave a room better than I found it. I try to apply that same idea to people.
8. Share the road like a grown-up
Even when I drive five to ten mph over the speed limit, there’s always some jerk tailgating me with his bumper two inches away from mine. He’s waving his hands in my rearview mirror like a angry referee. You’d think his pregnant wife was in the backseat, screaming as her baby threatened to drop out. Except — he never has a back seat because he’s driving a lifted truck.
Driving is the most dangerous thing most of us do each day—and yet, people skip seat belts and treat their commute like they’re in a demolition derby. This might seem simplistic but remember that we share the road. Speeding and cutting people off may help you get somewhere faster (although, often, it doesn’t). It typically reduces overall road efficiency and slows the whole of us down.
9. Limit your promises but always keep them
There’s nothing worse than people who casually give out commitments and immediately forget they exist Protect your integrity. Be like a knight: Honor your word even when the stakes are low. You are your own brand. And if people know they can count on you, they’ll be more trusting and willing to help you when you need it too. Also — it feels good. I hate flaky people.
10. Bend, don’t break
I was at my last corporate job and we were talking about pushing construction teams to meet their deadline. The PM was explaining to our COO that he was pressing workers as hard as he could. The COO held his hand up to stop the PM from talking and said, “Remember — bend don’t break. We need these guys.” There’d been a labor shortage and workers were having zero trouble finding jobs elsewhere. Morale had been declining on the job site due to excessive “mushing”. Bend don’t break applies inwardly too. It means you can allow bad experiences to impact you, just don’t let them ruin you. You can also apply “bend, don’t break” to the rules — but you didn’t hear that from me.
11. It’s rarely as bad as it seems in that instant
I try to avoid making long-term decisions based on how I feel at the moment. This cuts both ways. It means not making promises and commitments when I’m in a great mood — nor doing the same when I’m sour. Above all — anytime I’ve done a post-mortem on a stressful situation, things weren’t ever as apocalyptic as they might have seemed at the time.
12. Never disregard the power of 5 minutes
I’ve found that if I set aside 5 minutes to do a task or even a subtask — and think of it in those small terms, it sets me up to get things done. You can do a solid power clean in 5 minutes. You can send a message to an old friend or two, asking them to get together for coffee. Incrementalism is a powerful and effective tool to improve your life.
