How to write a rule of life

We all have a rule of life.

Don’t believe me? What time do you usually eat dinner? What time do you get up for the day? Do you brush your teeth before or after breakfast?

We ALL have a rule of life. Whether our rule of life is intentional or not is another story. So for now, let’s think of the unwritten rules as our Standard Operating Procedures. They’re just things we do. Not always intentional or thought out (though maybe some parts are).

But we want to live intentional, sacred lives here, right? So let’s work on a Rule of Life.

According to Sacred Ordinary Days, “A rule of life is a commitment to live your life in a particular way. It is meant to be crafted with prayer and discernment, in partnership with God, as you consider the way God made you and the values He has inscribed upon your heart. Once written, it serves as a tool that can help you make decisions for your life and determine how best to order your days.”

Benedict’s rule is the most famous. It mandated how his monks would live out their lives, and is a good standard to look at if you want a starting point.

Here are the steps I took to write my Rule of Life. I learned these from Dr. James Woods at Perkins School of Theology Spiritual Direction Certification classes, and I really like them as an easy starting point.

1. Write a list of everything you do in a day.

   This might look like: take my meds, eat breakfast, brush teeth, go to work, play on my phone, make dinner, hang with my kids, etc. BE HONEST!!! Now, leave this list alone and go do something else. Come back later.

2. Come back to your list and start to pick out categories.

   Maybe you notice that brush teeth and make dinner all go under self-care. Or maybe for you those things go under health. You need to go with what resonates with you for your categories. You want to end up with no more than 5-6 categories. More than that becomes cumbersome. Again, go away and come back later.

3. Now, list your categories.

   For example, my categories are “Devotion to God” “Devotion to Others” “Devotion to Self” “Devotion to Nature.” Write down what you ALREADY DO and want to continue in each category. We’re not working on self-improvement at this point. We’re just becoming aware of what we’re already doing right. So for me, “Devotion to Self” would say: I follow a nightly routine, I take time to sabbath every week, etc. “Devotion to others” might say: I do my very best to serve at work, I have a devoted family game night, and so on. Make these I statements in the present tense.

4. Add in what you WANT to do.

   Think through each of your categories and choose 1-2 things you want to add or subtract from that category. So maybe you had a health category and you wanted to stop eating meat. Your might read, “I eat a vegetarian diet.” Maybe you want to add a weekly sabbath: “I rest one day per week.” Again, make these I-statements in the present tense. Please don’t try to change more than one or two things per category. That’s asking for overwhelm and failure! This isn’t about reinventing your life all at once. It’s about slowly becoming more intentional about how you live your life.

5. Set a time to check in with your Rule.

   Seasonally is great. How are you doing? It’s not a judgement. It’s about tweaking to make it fit what you can do. If you’ve managed to do everything you set out to do, do you want to add something? Or are you happy with it just the way it is? If you haven’t, do you want to remove or change something, or is that thing still important enough to you to keep trying?

Being intentional about a Rule of Life rather than flying by the seat of our Standard Operating Procedures can make all the difference in the day-to-day decisions we make and lead us into a more intentional sacred life.

If you try this, I’d love to hear from you! What was your experience like?

If you’d like someone to walk with you on this journey, we can work on your Rule of Life together in a Sacred Shift Session, or over time in a coaching series. I’d love to help!