Hey, this is Anne with your Coaching on the Go.

Taking you through this process of auditing and updating and getting rid of different rules, structures and paradigms based on if they are taking you in the direction you want to go, or if they are not, or if they’re inhibiting you or causing resistance if they’re serving you or if they’re not serving you.

And today I want to carry on from yesterday’s, which was self-awareness, having self-awareness around your rules and regulations to decide which ones are antiquated and how they’ve affected you.

Today I’m moving forward in asking you and asking you to be a devil’s advocate, to be a belligerent child who questions all the rules, to be somebody who’s constantly asking why and wanting verification.

So what I want you to do today is search for the underlying assumption in the rule that you have and see if it’s valid, see if there’s evidence to support it or refute it, and then consider alternative viewpoints.

You’re doing a point-counterpoint here and exploring different perspectives.

I’m going to go into another rule that was in my life that I tossed completely, that nothing in life is free.

You have to work hard for everything.

It’s kind of two rules wrapped into one.

So the underlying assumption there is that there is nothing that comes to you.

You have to exert effort for everything.

And that is absolutely untrue.

It caused me to do a lot of things I didn’t need to do and not appreciate a lot of the things that I just got.

So the underlying assumption is that you have to work for everything, that you have to make an effort for everything, and it’s just not true.

I found evidence all over the place.

Love, for example.

The love I got from my parents and my family.

I didn’t have to work for that.

That came right away over time.

Sometimes as I was disciplined or did something they didn’t like, they might pull away from me for a period of time, which isn’t the most healthy way of loving somebody, but they didn’t stop loving me.

And when I look at the sunrise and the sunset and taking a walk in the woods and being out during the day and feeling the beautiful weather or the sunshine, all those things are free.

So many of the best things in life are free.

And then as I got older, things would come to me.

Someone would do something kind for me, or I would be in the flow.

And I was down at an orientation for my son at Milwaukee School of Engineering.

And because I wanted to say thank you to the chancellor, who gave a really great speech, I went up to chat with them, and we got chatting and I ended up going home with a volume of 20 incredible hardcover books of artworks of men at work.

And I was able to take that up to my school, and the students could benefit from that.

But how many times have you been chatting with somebody and someone gives you something or they refer you to something, or something comes to you?

There’s evidence all over that.

I discovered that you don’t have to work for everything and that you don’t have to work harder for everything.

Because often when I would get myself in the flow and when I do, things come easy.

It’s when I’m resisting that it’s hard.

So here’s an example, and I hope that supports you in being a devil’s advocate and questioning the underlying premise or the underlying structure or assumption that is in it’s housed within your rules and your structures and your paradigms.

And are those true?

Because if you discover they’re not, a whole bunch of your rules will probably go out the window and you will end up with a lot more ease in your life.

So that’s the work for today.

Take one or more of your rules, look into the underlying structure, the underlying premise of it, and gather evidence, if there’s evidence, to support it or refute it and consider alternative viewpoints around different perspectives.

And have a beautiful day doing it.