By Georgia Varjas, author of The Rule Breaker’s Guide to Step Up & Stand Out (Filament, £11.99, July 2019, available online and in all good bookshops, https://georgiavarjas.com)

The Rule Breaker's Guide

The Rule Breaker's Guide

Life is too short to be silent

My music teacher once told me, “Learn all the scales inside out and then forget them, for only then can you create your own music.”

She was a genius.

And this is my motto to this very day - to question everything.

Rules are made to protect the powerful and privileged. It keeps them, their money and their property under control. It’s a great policy, if each individual has the same rights.

Let’s keep in mind that rules are not forever, they have their limitation in space and time. Of course, many rules are established to serve our best interests and to protect us - but we all grow and learn that many rules are there to be challenged, re-created - and eventually broken.

Nowadays, in the frenetic world of instant media coverage, we are quick to judge and label. We love to assume rather than find out the facts; it is so much easier. But in the process of instant gratification and justification, we limit ourselves and create our own obstacles. Categories and boxes are in place to keep control and to prevent rebellions. Yet look at some of the great achievements of rebellious acts and how it changed situations and in some cases the laws too:

  • Malala Yousafzai who speaks out loud about education for women and girls.
  • Greta Thunberg protesting about climate change.
  • Tarana Burke who founded a movement to speak out about sexual abuse.

Three women who in the last decade have stepped up and broken rules.

Here are seven reasons when I believe rule-breaking is only natural:

  • When someone expects you to behave your age.
  • When someone else states you should behave like a woman should do.
  • If someone suggests you are not falling in line as is expected.
  • When someone interrupts you and suggests you should remain silent.
  • When someone else tells you to obey their rules in your own house.
  • When someone else demands you are available for them.
  • When someone else tells you how to run your life.

From speaking out and telling your boss that you will no longer express your breast milk in a broom cupboard, to refusing to wear high heels for every meeting, to telling your husband/partner that ‘help’ is not needed in the kitchen but team work is...

Or, speaking up to your gynecologist, obstetrician or GP that the pain and discomfort you have is not imaginary. All of these situations - and many more - offer an opportunity for you to step up, stand out and say “NO.” They are opportunities for you to assert your opinion and say, “This doesn’t suit me - this is not what I want.”

You can practice saying “No” by following this three-step guide:

  1. Look in the mirror and see how fabulous you appear when that little word comes out of your mouth – it is powerful.
  2. Then try it with the extra portion of food or that ‘final’ drink that you’re being offered but really don’t feel like.
  3. Finally, when someone tries to persuade you to do something, and you say no but they keep trying to cajole you into changing your mind… Practice that “No” with a firm but kind manner, always with a smile.

Let’s remember many of the great changes have happened because an individual, or a group of individuals, stood up against the status quo and challenged the rules:

  • Celia Sanchez was at the heart of the Cuban revolution, and a huge influence on Che Guevara. She joined the struggle against the Batista government and was an integral part of the decision-making throughout the Cuban Revolution.
  • Asmaa Mahfouz created a video blog that sparked the uprising in Egypt in 2011 and encouraged people out on to Tahrir Square to protest. She is one of the prominent leaders of the Egyptian Revolution.
  • Margaret Sanger is considered the mother of the modern-day movement for birth control. She wrote about birth control and reproductive rights in a magazine called ‘The Woman Rebel’ in 1914. Later, she founded the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

Confidence, courage and creativity teach you how to make smart decisions in your life and show you which rules need changing and/or removing. This is something I encourage in my new book, The Rule Breakers Guide to Step Up & Stand Out. What rules are you living by that are restricting or constraining your confidence, your courage or your creativity? Now’s the time to question why you’re living by those rules. And what you can do to push the restart button.