Phantom rules

… These are rules that you can’t see. They’re habits and behaviors that have unnecessarily rigidified into dogma. They’re unlike written rules, which are visible. The written rules appear right there in the standard operating procedures and can be amended or deleted.
Although written rules can be stubborn to change, phantom rules are even more stubborn. They’re the silent killers that constrain our thinking and keep us inside an invisible fence without us even being aware of it.
… “In all affairs,” British philosopher Bertrand Russell writes, “it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you take for granted.” To expose these phantom rules, spend a day questioning everything you do… to violate them. Go for a seeming moonshot you don’t think you’ll achieve.