The book calls them commandments because the word grabs attention. They aren't commandments in the religious sense. Nobody is going to smite you. They're commandments in the gravity sense: you can ignore them, but you will still pay.
Here they are, stripped down. The book has a chapter on each. This is the version you can read on a phone in the supermarket queue.
1. Guard the throne
Your inner state is the first thing to protect, not the last. Most people protect their job, their relationship, their reputation, their fitness, and only get to their inner state if there's time left. There's never time left.
Practice: Before you check your phone in the morning, sit for two minutes and ask how am I, actually? Don't fix. Just notice.
2. Say no without a story
"I don't want to" is a complete answer. You don't need to invent a conflict, a prior engagement, or a sudden illness. The story is for your comfort, not theirs. They mostly don't care about the reason. They just need the answer.
Practice: For one week, every time you say no, stop talking after the no. No "because." No "sorry but." Just the no, then silence. Watch what happens.
3. Be a thermostat, not a thermometer
A thermometer absorbs the room's temperature. A thermostat sets it. Most people are thermometers. They walk into a tense house and become tense. They walk into a happy meeting and become buoyant. Their inner state is borrowed.
Practice: When you sense yourself absorbing somebody else's mood, pause. Ask: do I want this mood? If no, you don't have to take it.
4. Audit the room
Some people leave you taller. Some leave you shorter. Both effects are real. Both are usually consistent. You probably already know who is which. The practice is to stop pretending you don't.
Practice: For the next ten people you spend time with, write one word in your notes app after you leave: up, down, or flat. After ten data points, the pattern is yours.
5. Stop apologising for taking up space
The reflexive "sorry" before you ask for something. The shrinking when you walk into a room. The minimising of your own work. None of it makes you more lovable. It makes you smaller, which is a different thing.
Practice: Replace "sorry to bother you" with "got a minute?" Same intent. Half the shrinking.
6. Choose discomfort that grows you over comfort that shrinks you
Comfort is not the enemy. Comfort that quietly shrinks your life is. The TV that's actually a way to not feel anything. The job that's safe but boring. The relationship that's calm because nobody is honest.
Practice: Once a week, do one thing that scares you slightly. Not "skydive" scary. "Send the awkward email" scary. The body will protest. The body is wrong about this one.
7. Love fiercely. Don't dissolve.
The selfless person dissolves into the people they love. They lose themselves in the relationship and call this loyalty. It isn't loyalty. It's a slow disappearance the other person didn't ask for.
You can love someone enormously and still be a distinct person. In fact you can't love them properly any other way. There has to be a "you" doing the loving.
Practice: After a long visit with people you love, ask: do I still know what I think? If no, that's information.
8. Carry your weight. Don't carry other people's.
You are responsible for your own life. They are responsible for theirs. There is a slim band of legitimate help in the middle — kids, the genuinely incapacitated, people in crisis — but most of the carrying adults do for other adults is unnecessary, and slowly resented by both sides.
Practice: Notice the small pull when someone tells you about a problem. Is it asking for advice? For sympathy? For you to fix it? Don't assume. Ask. The answer is often gentler than the carrying.
9. Tell the truth that costs you something
This one is the hardest. Cheap truth is easy. The truth that risks the friendship, the truth that makes the room go quiet, the truth that means you might be wrong about your own life — that's the truth the practice asks for.
Practice: This week, say one thing out loud that you have been thinking and not saying. Pick the smallest, scariest one. Just one.
10. Build wealth without shame
Money is energy. People who hold complicated shame about money tend to leak it, give it away too easily, and undercharge for their own time. People who hold contempt for money tend to hoard it and end up brittle. The Selfist treats money the way they treat sleep — useful, important, but not a personality.
Practice: Look up what you are currently paid. Look up the market rate for your job in your city. If the gap is more than 15%, that's a conversation, not a fact.
11. Practise daily, not when convenient
The whole framework only works if you actually do it. On a hard Tuesday. On a Sunday when you don't want to. On the morning after the fight.
The 5-minute survey is the diagnostic. The book is the source. The app, when it ships, is the daily reminder. The blog is here for the in-between. None of it works without the daily practice. All of it works with it.
The commandments aren't a moral code. They're a description of what stops costing you, once you start doing them.
If you want to know which commandment you're already living and which one needs work, the Selfist Score breaks it down by dimension.
Take the Selfist Score →One last word. None of these are new. People in monasteries, dojos, kitchens, and quiet ordinary houses have been living some version of them for centuries. Selfism's contribution is to put them in one list and make them practisable by people who don't have a monastery to retreat to.
You don't need to be a Selfist to use the list. The list itself is the work.