These are my thoughts about Rule 6 from Jordan B. Peterson’s “40 Rules”. You can read them all here. In the case of the rules that made it into his “12 Rules for Life” book, I’m not going to repeat any of his explanations here. These are my own thoughts about each rule from my own life and experience.

6. Pay attention.

In order to improve yourself, you must first pay attention.

Pay attention to what you do and say, how you do it, why you do it, what things you could stop doing or do less of, what things you could start doing or do more of. This is the start to self-awareness: paying attention.

Pay attention to what those around you do and say. Notice the people that are more negative (sometimes consistently negative). Perhaps spend less time with them or work on redirecting conversations away from complaining.

Pay attention to the influences in your life, often subtle ones: television, news, social media, family, friends, work associates. In our culture now, we are becoming more aware of what we put into our bodies but we seem to be less cautious about what goes into our minds.

The best way to improve your “pay attention” muscle is to try to slow down and notice everything in your life, even simple things like eating a meal. Notice the act of using the utensils, the smell and texture of the food, the experience of eating it.

Start doing this for everything, especially when you are reading, watching, listening or when you are having a conversation.

By paying attention, you can avoid telling little lies (or big ones). You can start to actively avoid doing things that you hate. You can act in ways that don’t make you want to hide what you’re doing. You can audit your plans and actions so that you are pursuing what is meaningful.

In other words, paying attention is the first step in applying most of Peterson’s rules (or any other self-improvement strategy) to your life.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates, 399 BC (as recorded in Plato’s Apology 38a5-6).