Are you creating enough fun in your life?

As George Bernard Shaw said, “we don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.”  

I know when I was first greeted with the phrase “fun and recreation” as one aspect of Paul J. Meyer’s now ubiquitous Wheel of Life exercise, I immediately had a vision of eight-year old Kate running down the soccer field with friends, smiling and intent. Then a flash of my hands in the paint in high school, exploring ever-larger canvases, mediums and sense of self. Young Kate sprawled on a dock by a lake writing prose in my journal. I felt joy, calm and focused. 

Take a moment to reflect - what were your favorite ways to play and have fun when you were a child?

Kids are seemingly strong in the character strength of zest, right? But we often lose it as we get older. I personally went from being a goofy kid to a seriously stressed and work-obsessed adult, pushing myself to burnout. As Esther Sternberg covers in the book, “The Balance Within, The Science Connecting Health & Emotions,” psychological and physiological stress in fact can make you sick by changing the way your immune system responds. 

With “I’m stressed and busy but good” the trending feeling of American life, and why many individuals are seeking coaches, turning our attention back to play and creating those feelings of joy, calm, focus {fill in the blank with how you feel at your best} as adults is vital. 

So let’s take a moment to define play. How might you define play or fun?

Stuart Brown, author and psychiatrist behind the book “Play” that reviewed over 6,000 play case studies, even had trouble defining it. Ultimately, Brown says, ”It's about doing something for its own sake. It's voluntary, it's pleasurable, it offers a sense of engagement and takes you out of time into flow. The act itself is more important than the outcome….. It's a state of being.”  

How does that resonate with you?

Instinctively, we might know we need play, but research has also shown it to be vital. And it's not just the importance of childhood play and how critical it is for your brain development. 

Martin Seligman’s theoretical model for happiness, PERMA, embraces the importance of fun and play both in the “E” with engagement, about being in the flow of creative calm, in the “P'“ of positive emotions thanks to our body being flooded with joy and focus-generating neurotransmitters; and often “R” of relationships when we engage in recreation with others.

So, if we need positive emotions, engagement and relationships to live a flourishing life - we need fun! 

And if we follow that train of thought into Barbara Fredrickson’s “Broaden & Build Theory,” we see that as we experience more positive emotions (e.g. the more fun we have), we become more aware and have more novel, varied thoughts and actions. This helps us build skills and resources, and ultimately improves our resiliency to future tough and stressful moments. 

Brown’s research has also shown that for adults, play helps us connect with each other and is really important to our social well being. It is something that we can create conversations through and talk about, helps us stay cognitively sharp -specially puzzles, games. Being silly and playful with your partners and in relationships can help you move through those little wrinkles and disputes. Play fuels the imagination, creativity and problem solving useful for all aspects of living life.

Having fun gives you that sense of overall emotional wellbeing and when you're happy, you're more productive, and you feel better. Without play, your perseverance and joy in work and life is lessened and overall life is just a lot more laborious. 

Play is really, really important to having a flourishing life.  

And yet -- when was the last time you played? If you haven't played in a while - what is holding you back from getting enough play in your life?

There are some common responses of why we adults especially don't play. 

• A big one is we are worried about what others will think about us and what we think is fun, or that we’re being silly (so uncool). 

• We think we need money to go have fun,  or we don't have time, there's never enough time. 

• Maybe we need to plan to make it happen. We don't have time to plan or if we didn't plan it's not going to go right. Or the conditions must be perfect. Once I get this done, and that happens, and the kids are this, then we can play. 

• Often we think play needs to be big and spectacular - amusement parks and vacations. 

• Another one is that we mistake seriousness for solemnity. Serious things like work can be fun. A great example is airline safety, right? A very serious matter. And we've seen them have all sorts of fun doing it right.

How do you have fun at work? During tough times?

So we can have fun at work, we can be playful at work and in serious situations.

So what’s going on here that’s keep us back from playing? Where are all of these assumptions coming from?

The inner critic!

So work with your own coach or your clients on their specific brand of inner critic to eliminate some of those limiting beliefs and also start to create new strength-based habits and ways to be more fun and have more fun in your life. 

What strengths might you use to get more play going?

Thinking about those strengths, here are the highlights of seven habits from Nelson Wang, Founder of CEOLifestyle.io, to help you feel more fun and be fun to be around. 

1. Take care of yourself first. You can't be fun if you're exhausted. 

2. Be 100% in the moment, put away the technology, really listen, really engage with that person. 

3. Find your own passion, and ask others about what their passions are. Energy is contagious. When you're talking about things that you love, It's fun. 

4. Have a genuine curiosity for life and others and look to be learning and building trust and bonds and just being open and curious to the world of how fun and joy will come into your life. 

5. Reframing your thoughts is important - having fun and finding humor in tough situations, laughing things off. 

6. Try pushing your limits, try new things, go meet new people. Or maybe you want to push your limits and do something that you haven't done since you were a kid. I did improv a few years ago as my way of reengaging with something I loved as a kid.

7. Go on life adventures. Everyone loves the story.

Now that we have ideas on how to feel more fun, let's talk about how you can actually have more fun and play.

It starts with giving yourself permission and setting the goal to play as we really look at living in abundance in a broad sense and now understanding how important it is. 

Just like exercise, Brown suggests you should be getting at least 30 minutes fun un-interrupted EVERY DAY, two hours uninterrupted one day a week, and then two weeks uninterrupted once a year.

How are you living up to that fun minimum?

While encouraging play spontaneously is great, it's important to schedule in this fun just like we do all of our priorities so we are more likely to complete them. Just having fun scheduled can make you more productive, and enjoy life a little bit more knowing those breaks are coming. 

A play drawer,  similar to this idea of comfort drawer Sarah Ban Breathknach talks about in her book “Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy,” is also a good way to be prepared for fun at all times. it's all about stockpiling small indulgences, games, Legos, Playdough coloring books - little things that you can enjoy when you're bored or you don't know what to do yourself, or for those days where you just want to hide under the covers. It’s powerful to have something ready that is going to spark you and bring you joy. 

Fun doesn’t have to mean adding additional things to the schedule, look for ways to incorporate it into existing activities as a type of “powerup .” For instance we're already having dinner tonight, what if we all wear silly hats? Maybe you’re a runner - there’s an app to mimic a zombie chasing you! There are all sorts of ways to gamify and add fun to your life. 

Create specific playdates with your partner or friends. It's easy to get into routines when there are so many other things that really engage you and help you connect on a totally different level.

If you have a fun person in your life, go hang out with them or chat - they are inspiring. Kids will do the same thing. They will bring you into that moment, they will be playful, and help you just let yourself go! Find those with zest!

And of course, a big part of going out and having fun is deciding what fun means to you. Revisiting things you did unprompted as a child is a great way to start to figure out what fun means to you has an adult, make a list and start exploring. Google fun ideas for adults, or maybe google based on the list of things that you did as a kid. 

In conclusion, whether you’re talking about the long-term health and wellbeing of yourself , or are looking for a way to redirect your thoughts and energy when you feel the stress response — think fun! Spin in your chair, have a mini dance party or paint your toes a wild color, put your phone away, learn and test out a new joke on as many people as you can, high five a stranger, check out live music, try a new recipe, have a cardboard tube sword fight, finger paint, or whistle the theme song to your favorite show….. there's just so many ways we can have fun.

I hope you’ve learned that so much of the struggle to have fun isn’t about the ease or availability- it’s about mindset, allowing ourselves to have the fun and dealing with the inner critic.

So, I challenge you to get 30 minutes of fun, every single day, on your calendar for the next 30 days, take notes along the way, and see how the play impacts other areas on that wheel of your flourishing life. 

Now, if you’re up for it I’d love a comment of how you intend to have fun over the next week, or something fun you’re looking forward to...what you consider fun these days! 

I know I considered my prep for this blog fun!