“No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion.”
(Carrie Chapman Catt)
A reflection
Most of the rules that shape our lives were never formally written down.
They’re simply absorbed.
Ideas about what success should look like.
How productive we should be.
What a “good” career looks like.
What kind of person we ought to be.
Often these expectations arrive quietly through family, culture, workplaces, or the communities we belong to.
Over time they can start to feel like facts rather than opinions.
Yet many of the pressures people describe in coaching conversations come from exactly these kinds of unwritten rules.
Rules such as:
You should have everything figured out by now.
You should always be improving yourself.
You should be further ahead than this.
Because these ideas are so widely shared, it can seem as though they must be true.
But sometimes a moment of reflection reveals something surprising.
Many of the expectations shaping our decisions were never consciously chosen.
They were simply inherited.
And once we see that, something can change.
Not every unwritten rule deserves to keep running our lives.
Questions for coaches
You might enjoy sitting with a few of these questions:
- What unwritten rules are shaping the way you think about your work or your life?
- Which of those expectations still genuinely make sense to you?
- Which ones might simply be inherited ideas rather than personal truths?
- When have you seen a client suddenly realise they were living inside someone else’s expectations?
- What changes when people give themselves permission to question those rules?
There’s no need to answer them all.
Sometimes a single question is enough to open a new direction.
A quiet thought
Perhaps one of the gifts of reflection is noticing that the rules we live by are often more flexible than they first appear.
Sometimes, when an unwritten rule loosens its grip, people rediscover a surprising amount of freedom.
About Jen Waller
Jen Waller is a transformative coach who works with thoughtful professionals and coaches who want a quieter, more honest way forward.
Her work helps people question the expectations, pressures, and inherited ideas that may have been shaping their lives without them even realising it, so they can reconnect with their own clarity, wisdom, and direction.