The Rule of Five
Take five concrete actions toward one goal every day
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 99%
The Rule of Five asks you to take five specific actions toward a chosen goal every day. Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen used it to market Chicken Soup for the Soul after studying successful authors and a book of book-selling tactics. They converted each tactic into a Post-it note, covered a wall with the inventory, and either executed one action five times or completed five different actions. Calls to churches, military exchanges, bookstores, conferences, and radio programs accumulated even when no single effort appeared decisive. The mechanism is persistent, diversified exposure: each action creates another chance for discovery or word of mouth, while the daily quota prevents the goal from disappearing beneath other work.
Origin
Canfield and Hansen named the Rule of Five while promoting Chicken Soup for the Soul, reinforced by a psychic's five-axe-swipes metaphor.
Core principles
- 01Daily volume compounds
- 02Small actions can advance a large goal
- 03Consistency matters more than a single breakthrough
- 04Use a visible inventory of possible actions
How to run it
- 1
Choose the target
Select one outcome important enough to receive daily effort.
Pro tip Make the outcome measurable so activity does not become the goal.
- 2
Build an action inventory
Collect specific tactics from experienced practitioners and your own ideas.
Pro tip Write each action separately so it can be selected and completed.
- 3
Take five actions
Complete five different actions or repeat one useful action five times each day.
Pro tip Include follow-ups, not only first contacts.
Watch out Do not confuse low-quality repetition with productive consistency.
- 4
Persist through latency
Continue the quota when results arrive unevenly or word of mouth takes time to spread.
Watch out Do not abandon the process merely because one day produces no visible result.
In the wild
Canfield and Hansen called churches, military exchanges, and bookstores; arranged talks and signings; attended conferences; and accepted radio interviews at inconvenient hours. They performed five actions every day for a year while the book spread through interviews and word of mouth.
→ The book sold about 1.3 million copies in its first year and a half despite the publisher initially estimating 20,000 copies if they were lucky.
Common mistakes
Waiting for one breakthrough
The method depends on accumulated attempts rather than predicting a single winning channel.
Counting vague effort
Each unit should be a completed, concrete action that can move the target forward.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for promotion, outreach, and other goals where many small attempts can compound.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when action quality cannot be maintained or five daily attempts would create harm or spam.
From the transcript
“Every day we'd take something off and either do it five times or take five postit off and do each one time.”
“It would be as if you would go into a tree with a very sharp axe and you would take five swipes at that tree…”
From the episode
#833: Jack Canfield — Selling 600+ Million Books, Success Principles, and How He Made The 4-Hour Workweek Happen
Jack Canfield