When the rules expire
Do you ever find yourself following rules that don’t work for you anymore?
Sometimes, they’re obvious. I recently started a new strength training program after dealing with some lower back pain. To protect my back and ensure proper form, I started the program with a back brace. However, I soon found myself reaching for the brace out of habit every time I got ready to workout, even after my back was healed. The rule served me well for a time, but later became no longer necessary.
Often, I see this come up in unproductive ways with new or growing leaders. They lean on certain skills that have helped them achieve great success in the past, but those same rules don’t help, or even hinder, their success in their new roles.
Maybe being the one who knows every in and out of the product helps them be a fantastic individual contributor but turns them into a bottleneck when they step into a leadership role.
Or being super responsive helps them gain credibility, but jumping in to answer every question doesn’t leave space for their team to learn and grow.
This week, I found a new term to describe this phenomenon which helped add clarity in the way I talk about these situations.
In the latest Fully Alive by Design newsletter, Stanford educators Bill Burnett and Dave Evans (authors of Design Your Life and How to Live a Meaningful Life) talk about how rules expire.
They share:
“The dysfunctional belief: if the old rules stopped working, I must not be trying hard enough.
The reframe: the rules didn't fail. They expired. That's a signal to design new ones, not to grip the old ones tighter.”
This resonated strongly with me. So often, when we find ourselves following rules that aren’t getting the results we’re hoping for, we double down. We do them more, harder, with more focus.
And yet, we still don’t get the results we want. And it’s often not because of our own failing.
It’s because the rules expired.
They’re not the rules that work for us anymore. Circumstances have changed, we’ve changed, our goals have changed.
So I ask you this, dear reader.
What rules in your life have expired?
What new rules do you want to design?
September 17, 2026
About the author:
Christina Von Stroh is a leadership coach who helps her clients become wildly successful by applying iterative software development practices to achieve their dreams. Want to work with Christina to help you iterate towards the person you’re becoming?
Book your free strategy session.
