12 Rules for Life: Powerful Lessons from Dr. Jordan Peterson
Rule 1: Stand Up Straight with Your Shoulders Back
Rule one is stand up straight with your shoulders back.
Rule 2: Treat Yourself Like Someone Responsible for Helping
And rule two is treat yourself like you're someone responsible for helping.
Rule 3: Make Friends with Those Who Want the Best for You
By the way, these last two rules aren't injunctions designed to make your life easier. They're actually injunctions designed to make your life more difficult. Kierkegaard said at one point that his role in life, given that everything was proceeding to become easier and easier in all possible ways, that there would come a time when people would cry out for difficulty. And so that's partly how he envisioned his role in the world, interestingly enough, as a universal benefactor of mankind who would strive to do nothing other than to make life more difficult for everyone. Right. And so rule two and three are like that because treating yourself as if you're someone responsible for helping isn't the same as being nice to yourself. It's not that. And to associate with people who want the best for you means that they get to demand the best from you. And that's also not an easy thing.
Rule 4: Compare Yourself to Who You Were Yesterday, Not to Who Someone Else Is Today
Rule four is compare yourself to who you were yesterday and not to who someone else is today. And that's an injunction about envy. You need things that are above you because you need to do something worthwhile with your life. You need something to aim at. But one of the consequences of that is that you can become envious of people that you believe have attained more in a deserved or undeserved manner. And that can make you bitter. And so it's much better to compare yourself to yourself and to use yourself as the target for improvement and comparison.
Rule 5: Don’t Let Your Children Do Anything That Makes You Dislike Them
Rule five is don't let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. And the rule of thumb there is if you dislike them, then other people will. And it's a bad idea to allow your children to act in a way that makes other children dislike them or adults dislike them, given that they're going to have to deal with children and they're going to have to deal with adults. So your primary responsibility as a parent is to help your child learn how to behave so that the social world opens up its arms to them and welcomes them at every level. You've done your job if you can manage that, and it's not a simple thing to do.
Rule 6: Put Your House in Perfect Order Before You Criticize the World
Rule six is put your house in perfect order before you criticize the world. And that's not take no action for others until you have your act together. That isn't what the rule means. It means that bind your ambition with humility and work on what's right in front of you that you will suffer for if you get wrong before you engage in the large-scale transformation of other people.
Rule 7: Do What Is Meaningful, Not What Is Expedient
Rule seven is do what is meaningful and not what is expedient. And I would say in some sense that's the core ethos of the book. Not exactly, because rule eight, which is tell the truth or at least don't lie, is a necessary conjunction to that or a necessary additional element because I don't think that you can pursue what is meaningful without telling the truth. And the reason for that is if you don't tell the truth, or let's say if you lie, which is an easier way to think about it, you corrupt the mechanisms, the instinctual mechanisms that manifest themselves as meaning, and then you can't trust them. And that's a very bad idea.
So the fundamental reason to not lie is because you corrupt your own perceptions if you lie. And when you corrupt your own perceptions, then you can't rely on yourself. And if you can't rely on yourself, then, well, good luck to you. Because what are you going to rely on in the absence of your own judgment? You've got nothing if you lose that.
Rule 8: Tell the Truth, or at Least Don’t Lie
As I said, rule eight is tell the truth or don't, or at least don't lie.
Rule 9: Assume the Person You Are Listening to Knows Something You Don’t
Rule nine is assume that the person that you're listening to knows something you don't. And that's not so much a mark of respect for the person, although it is that, it's a mark of recognition of your own unbearable ignorance.
One of the things you have to do in life, you have to decide what's more important, what you know or what you don't know. First of all, there's a lot of what you don't know. And so, if you make friends with that, if you decide that's important, then, well, that's a good thing, because you're going to be surrounded by what you don't know your entire life. And so, if you're appreciative of that, then that's going to make things go better for you.
But the other element of that is, well, why should you be appreciative of what you don't know? And the answer to that is, well, you shouldn't. If your life is absolutely perfect in every way, you have exactly what you need and want, you've put everything in order around you, then what you know is sufficient. But if you believe that things could still be put right around you in your own personal life and with regard to the effect that you have on other people, then obviously what you don't yet know is more important than what you do know, and you should be paying attention to find out what you don't know at every possible moment.
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And if you're fortunate when you have a conversation with someone and you're actually interested in what they say, then even if they're not very good at communicating, even if they're awkward, or even if they display a certain amount of enmity towards you, there's always the possibility that they might tell you something you don't know, in which case you can walk away from the conversation less ignorant and corrupt than you were when you started the conversation.
And if your life isn't everything that you would like it to be, then being slightly less ignorant and corrupt is probably a good thing.
Rule 10: Be Precise in Your Speech
Rule ten is be precise in your speech. And that's an observation, I would say, that's a variant of a New Testament injunction, which is maybe a description of the nature of the world, which is knock and the door will open and ask and you will receive, which is a very strange theory, let's say. But which I would say is far more in accordance with what we know about the psychology of perception.
Let's say then you might imagine because it is the case that you don't get what you don't aim at. You might get what you do aim at, and your aim might get better as you aim as well, which is something to consider. If you specify the nature of the being that you want to bring into being, then you radically increase the probability that that's what will occur.
And of course, you all know that because you regard yourself, at least to some degree, as active creative agents, right? Your fundamental attitude towards yourself, at least in the manner that you act towards yourself, is that you wake up in the morning and you have a landscape of possibilities that lay themselves open to you, and you make choices between those possibilities and determine in consequence how the world is going to manifest itself.
Rule 11: Don’t Bother Children When They’re Skateboarding
Rule eleven is don't bother children when they're skateboarding. And that's actually a discussion of courage, of encouragement more specifically, because I've been trying to understand, for example, what role parents play in the lives of their children.
And I would say this is a role that is of fundamental importance, as well as attempting to guide your children so that they act in a socially desirable manner, so that the world opens itself up to them. You also want to encourage them, which is not the same as sheltering them.
It's not the same at all. And to encourage someone is to say something like, or to act out something like, look, kid, the world's already difficult because the world isn't easy for children any more than it's easy for adults. The difficulties are they're not the same. They're child-sized difficulties, but they're still difficulties.
The world is a very hard place, and it's a bitter place in many ways, and it's not only a hard and bitter place, it's also touched with betrayal and malevolence, and that's the fundamental bottom line. But there's something in you that is capable of taking that full on and transcending it, and that's encouragement. You say, well, as difficult as things are, you're up to the challenge.
Rule 12: Pet a Cat When You Encounter One on the Street
Rule twelve is pet a cat when you encounter one on the street. And it's a, oddly enough, a meditation on fragility. It's a discussion of what you do when you don't know what to do.
And that's really when things have gone badly for you, when you face a terrible tragedy in your own personal life, or in your familial life, or perhaps even in the life of your community, when things come crowding in at you too quickly, in the case of a death in the family, or a terrible illness, or the collapse of a dream, or any of the things that can flip your world upside down. How do you cope with that?
Conclusion: Embrace the Challenge of Meaningful Living
Dr. Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life offers more than just advice—it provides the blueprint for building a meaningful, purposeful life. Through a combination of tough love, practical guidance, and philosophical wisdom, these rules inspire us to take responsibility for our own lives, aim for personal growth, and embrace life’s inherent challenges. By following these principles, we can face adversity head-on, improve ourselves, and create a world that welcomes growth and change.
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