On Setting Rules
Most people, whether they will admit it or not, appreciate their lives being governed by sensible rules and boundaries. Anyone fortunate enough to live in a country with rational road rules, a fair judicial system and a common regard for orderly queues should be able to acknowledge that this is true. Anyone living in a country that doesn't have those things certainly can.
Rules make our lives easier. We might not like getting every red light between home and work when we are running late, but we can also accept that it is preferable to have traffic lights than for intersections to just be managed like a terrifying game of Frogger. We can probably also acknowledge that the snooze button on our alarm clock is more of a hindrance to our punctuality than the ubiquity of red lights.
If we can accept that our lives are easier when everyone follows a defined set of rules, why do we struggle so completely when it comes to the ones we put in place for our own wellbeing? Why does it feel like we keep intentionally and wilfully sabotaging our own goals?
Until his early thirties, Jacob believed that he simply lacked willpower. Food was his biggest issue, but he also had at least a dozen other unwanted habits that he couldn’t seem to shake. He did have some inner capacity to persevere through discomfort. It was limited, but he had managed to hold down several very tedious full-time jobs over the preceding decade. He also showered and brushed his teeth every day (well, most days anyway); he just couldn’t seem to maintain a healthy, productive routine beyond that.
He assumed he was just someone that couldn’t stick to rules unless they were forced upon him by others. He desperately wanted to curb his eating, but the only thing that ever held him back was the fear of public judgement, and (to the detriment of his waistline) he was quite often alone. On several occasions, he considered trying to introduce stricter food rules into his share house arrangements but considering how difficult it was to get everyone to adhere to the cleaning roster, he didn’t think it worth the trouble.
The thing is, Jacob actually really likes rules. He’s the type that presses the pedestrian button and waits for the green man even when there are no cars around. This natural tendency to want to follow rules may be the reason he spent so long puzzling over why he continuously broke all the ones that were good for him. When he eventually figured out the answer, his constant rule breaking made perfect sense. He wasn’t the one breaking them. He just had a hungry goat in his head that was hellbent on sabotaging his well-intended plans.
The hungry goat is the part of each of us devoted to doing the easiest, most pleasurable thing. Everybody has one, but what they most love doing and consuming varies, as does how intensely they insist on doing and consuming the things they love. Take sleeping, for example. It is the easiest and most pleasurable thing on offer for a sizeable portion of the day and most goats prefer it over just about anything else. When we make plans to get up early, and set the alarm clock accordingly, we are in charge. When the alarm goes off at five forty-five, it is the goat that hits the snooze button.
Now it would seem logical that the main difference between people and their goats is their commitment to rules. Humans appear to want them. Goats appear to enjoy breaking them. We set ourselves perfectly sensible rules like: Starting tomorrow morning, I will pack a nutritious breakfast every day and not go through the drive-thru on the way in to work. Then as soon as it becomes apparent that we are going to be driving past a fast-food restaurant, the goat gives us a perfectly valid reason to wind down the window and throw that rule out (while simultaneously placing an order for far too many hashbrowns).*
It will seem like a paradox, but goats don't actually like to break rules. They really rather prefer them. The trouble is, they’ve already figured out their own set and are determined to make their human adhere to them.
Their number one rule is that that they must keep their human alive, and as eating is central to this, it is a very common point of conflict between people and goats. Goat rules generally involve getting their humans to eat as many calories as possible in the fastest, densest and easiest manner available. Human rules tend to involve moderate restraint and at least the occasional vegetable.
For example, if a goat discovers really delicious muffins at the café near work—a discovery that was made when their person snoozed through breakfast and purchased one on a whim as they were rushing into the office—they might implement a rule to eat one every morning. The human might suggest making a green smoothie or having some tomato on toast instead, and the goat may even go along with it. They will most certainly encourage an extra slice of toast for the car ride to work. But when that café is within sight, they’ll make sure their human is well aware of their muffin-every-morning rule. Any resistance will be painfully uncomfortable.
It can feel like an impossible situation. When the goat is napping, we carefully plan out our brilliant lifestyle overhauls that will most definitely start tomorrow and will most certainly eliminate every bad habit. Then the goat turns up and everything is swiftly abandoned. This can go on for years—decades even—and most of us end up with nothing but an expanded waistline and the deeply held belief that we are inherently hopeless.
That is certainly where Jacob was at. He was determined to live a happy, productive life, but just couldn't manage to maintain any of the rules he put in place. His goat was much better at rule adherence then he was. Its non-negotiables included snooze buttons, junk food binges, staying up late to watch television, and the avoidance of all physical exercise; and as The Goat was always in charge, that was what they always did. Jacob felt like a total failure.
Then he figured out three important things about rules and goats that hadn't occurred to him before.
Goats are most persistent when there isn’t a rule in place and they think a decision is required, so Jacob had to clearly figure out what his own rules were.
Change can make a goat panic, so in order to implement a new rule, he needed to ease his goat in slowly and gently.
Goats have very short memories. They will forget about their own rule and nudge in the direction of their human’s rule if they’ve done it repeatedly for a very short while, so Jacob just had to work on doing his <now clearly defined> rules regularly.
Using the muffin scenario again, the basic problem is that there is no specific rule already in place. The human might have a smoothie, maybe some toast. They’re not sure. They’re just going to see what they feel like in the morning. As it is all a bit up in the air, it is very easy for the goat to assert its preference.
Goats love to help with decisions, so the human needs to decide on a rule and then work on implementing it consistently. (I.e. They need to figure out the specific breakfast they will eat each morning, when it will be eaten and the precise amount.) It won’t always work, and it will be very difficult at the beginning, but by making the change small and specific enough, a goat will learn to adjust to it and eventually forget about its own rule. It’s really just a matter of demonstrating to it that having a green smoothie every morning, rather than a choc-chip muffin, is not going to result in their human immediately starving to death (and it may actually be quite pleasant).
It was a slow and incremental process, but Jacob eventually figured out the difference between the rules he wanted in his life and those his goat wanted. The Goat’s rules all revolved around doing the most sedentary, easiest, thought-devoid thing possible, while (simultaneously) consuming the greatest number of calories. That was what it believed was necessary for its human to live their best life.
Well, maybe not their best life, but it would definitely keep them alive, and that was all that really mattered.
Jacob was much less concerned about just staying alive—he wanted to feel alive too—so his rules tended toward restraint, challenges and anything his goat didn’t like (e.g. steamed vegetables).
It wasn’t that a life of television, social media, ice cream, and chocolate cake sounded terrible. Some days, Jacob couldn’t think of anything better. The trouble was, his goat adored them and forced Jacob through a hellish amount of discomfort and stress whenever he attempted to resist them, quit them, or just think about something else. Jacob felt like he was being held captive to The Goat’s fanatical whims, and being able to free himself of its constant hankerings was worth giving most of them up.
It took a long time, but his goat has now forgotten most of the foods and activities that it used to put in a steady stream of requests for. It sometimes asks for a treat, and Jacob sometimes agrees, but mostly it is happy to let Jacob do what he wants and spend most of its time napping. It has forgotten all about cigarettes, social media, television, beer, anything non-vegan, and the snooze button on the alarm clock.
Some people might think a life without those things sounds restrictive and depressing, but more often than not, it is a hungry goat voicing that opinion. Jacob doesn’t feel restricted. He finally feels like he is free.
By identifying the moments in our schedules where a goat is enforcing an unwanted rule, then figuring out the rule we would like to implement instead, change is possible. With slow, tiny modifications and a bit of positive encouragement, goats will (begrudgingly) get on board. They are inherently lazy after all. If a goat learns to trust that its human has it sorted—and is not going to do anything life threatening like skip lunch—it will be quite happy to take a long nap and let them take charge.
Published 10th June 2025*NB. Goats find it most effective to sabotage their humans’ plans by acting like they are not there. Even when a goat has taken complete control of a situation, humans believe they are ones doing all the thinking. If the goat is forcefully demanding that their human stop for a drive-thru breakfast, what it will sound like in that person’s head is:
I know I decided I was going to stop getting a bacon and egg wrap with extra cheese for breakfast, but I really don’t have a choice today as I am exceptionally busy and running late. If I don’t eat something on the way to work, I might not get to eat until dinnertime. It is perfectly reasonable for me to get a breakfast wrap, a milkshake and several hashbrowns this morning, as I know I won’t have time for lunch.
The goat is definitely the one calling the shots here. It is also blatantly lying. There is no way it will let their person skip lunch.
