OK, so this was originally posted in my private journal, but I sent it around to a few friends and they seemed to enjoy it, so here we are.

Please note that I am certainly not attempting to take credit for these concepts, as they’ve been stolen from various bits of psychology, spirituality and the like. They are simply a list of 10 rules that I’ve tried to follow and have found to be very helpful in decreasing my stress levels and enjoying my life more.

I’d love to hear any feedback from the (literally) DOZENS of people reading.

So without further ado, here’s the list.

1. You get back from the world what you put out into the world.
2. Get everything out of your head (write it down, say it out loud, sing it)
3. When presented with new opportunities, say yes more than you say no
4. Avoid attention whores and emotional vampires, they are people with nothing to offer.
5. Pay regular conscious attention to how you are treating yourself. If it’s not at least as good as your closest friend, do something about it.
6. Ask for what you want, when the worst response is a “no”
7. Spoil yourself when you can, but remember that material goods are background noise in a fulfilling life.
8. When you feel down, sit down and make a list of the good things that have happened to you in the last week. “There haven’t been any” is not an acceptable answer.
9. Don’t stress what you can’t control. Ever.
10. You can’t change other people; all you can do is be the kind of person that other people want to change in order to be.

[Update 1/27: Some other good/duplicate ideas at Hack Yourself]