70: How to Always Find Fun as an Adult

Episode 70 Creating Fun.mp3

[00:00:09] You're listening to the Time to Level Up podcast. I'm your host, business life coach Andrea Libros.

[00:00:17] I help women in business commit to their own growth personally and professionally. Each week, I'll bring you strategies to help you think clearly gain confidence. Make your time productive. Turn every obstacle into an opportunity. And finally overcome the overwhelm so that you can make money and manage life. Let's create a plan so you have a profitable business, successful career. And best of all. Live with unapologetic ambition. Are you ready to drop the drama and figure out the how in order to reach your goals? You're in the right place. It's time to level up.

[00:00:57] Let's do this.

[00:01:11] Hey, time to level up, listeners and welcome back to today's podcast, so as I continue talking this month about creating creating wealth, creating your life. Today's topic creating fun. And if you've been following me for a while, you might have listened to episode 20 where I talked about how I love to try to make everything simple, doable and fun. And this is kind of just an extension of that episode. So go back and listen to episode 20. You might find that very useful as we talk about creating this month. Now, this concept actually has been in my mind a lot lately as I've been preparing for April's live event and I have been thinking, how can I make it fun? Because really, if something's not fun, then we shouldn't be doing it at all because we, as humans are created to have fun. I mean, think back to when you're a kid. Your whole objective there for the whole day was to have fun, right? So we, as humans are programed to have fun and as we get into adulthood when we are trying to achieve things and get things done. Sometimes the fun disappears. I want to talk about that a little today, but if you haven't gone and registered for achieve more, do less. Please go do that. You can head over to Andrea Lee browser backslash achieve or you can go right to achieve more, do less live and check out what we are going to do.

[00:03:06] If anything, you are not going to have to answer to anyone over the that day and a half except yourself. You're not going to have to cook for anyone. You're not going to have to do anything that you don't want to do, which I think always then is fun. All right, let's get started. So how can this be fun? All right. So here's here's number one. Number one, I want you to remember that fun is not external to us. Like that thing? External to us is fun. That game is fun. That person is fun. We create fun based on our thoughts, and we know this to be true because what I think is fun may not necessarily be fun for you, right? So I want you to think back like I mentioned, when you're a kid or a child and when you're little, do you remember the days when your only job or your kids only job was to play? And sometimes we would say that I would say that to my kids. Their job was to go play. And sometimes humans don't even want to stop to eat or sleep or take a bath because they're having so much fun. Do you remember that they don't want to stop when your kids are little? They didn't want to stop. They just wanted to keep having fun. So human beings are designed to play and have fun. It is innate in us. We're programed to have fun because I would argue that when we think something is fun.

[00:04:43] It that's a thought this is fun, it triggers the emotion of joy and a feeling in our body that's usually very light and airy. It's definitely not heavy. And since humans are wired to experience a rainbow of emotions, joy being one of them, then I know that we're wired to create fun and trigger joy or even curiosity. Right. That's another great word that can be attached to fun. So fun. I think can also be associated, and this is kind of what I've been doing as I've been thinking about this event. It can also be associated with experimenting and connection and exploration and freedom all of these things can be fun to. In fact, side note, this afternoon I received a text from a client that said, look at what we did in January. We had a net positive month. This is getting fun. Ok, so she's been working really hard, I'm making her business efficient and generating more revenue and a higher profit margin, and it's happening and she is finding that fun. Ok, back to what I had planned to tell you, so at this point in my life, though, I am not a child and I do want to stop to eat and sleep and shower, OK. It is natural for us to grow up and not behave the exact same way that kids do, and at some point we start to get serious, right? Actually, we can kind of see that in our kids.

[00:06:33] If you've got kids as they go through junior high, they start to get a little more serious and we start to think that play is not nearly as important as other things, and we start to take life more seriously in ourselves more seriously. What's kind of ironic during the same time frame, when we start to take things a little more seriously, we start to value connections and friendships even more, and we start to think about people as being fun. So remember, even as an adult to pause and reflect on the fact that the kid version of you, the one that likes to have fun is still inside you. It's still inside me. It's available and I can access it if I try. So stepping out of my adult brain that thinks I need to take things seriously and I need to be responsible and I need to worry all the things that feel heavy. It's kind of like I'm carrying around my giant Santa's sack over my shoulder, and I question, is it really always necessary for everything to be so serious and heavy? Now, I want you to think back to March, April, May of 2020, and I'm guessing that most of you at some point during that time period felt free like you had so many less responsibilities and you could really just have fun. You could do a puzzle, you could watch a movie, you could have some fun cocktails, you can make banana bread.

[00:08:21] Things that didn't feel so stressful in many ways because you had nowhere to be. You did not have to be anywhere and you were allowing yourself during those months to have some fun. Now it was a different kind of fun. It wasn't going to concerts kind of fun, but it was probably you're probably doing things inside your home that were fun that you don't normally do on a daily basis. So probably to at some point during that time period, you woke up and said to yourself, Well, what am I going to do today? Even if you were still working? It was different, right? You felt like you had less responsibilities now. You might have had kids at home, which you didn't usually have, which is an added responsibility. But I think you can follow what I'm saying. So I want I want to remind you, though, right here, I want to stop and remind you that there's no such thing as things that are fun and things that are not fun. In the same goes with people. Certain people are not fun and others are fun. That's not true, either. Anything that exists outside of us cannot be fun or not fun. They are outside of us and we either have fun or we don't. Fun is really the an experience that we create for ourselves. It's based off of our thoughts. If it was outside of us, then we all would be having the same experience and we're not all having the same experience, right? So let's take skiing, for example.

[00:09:58] I am actually recording this podcast on a Sunday because tomorrow, Monday, I am leaving for more than a week on a ski trip with a friend. Now she and I think skiing is fun. Or at least I thought skiing was fun. When I was a kid, we had a ski house and I did it really probably two to three weekends out of the month during the winter. Ok. So one of my things that I want to infuse back into my life is some skiing. Now, my husband does not think skiing is fun. So I wanted this ski experience, which I think is fun to happen and I made it happen. I put it out there into the universe that I wanted to ski more in twenty twenty one, which actually didn't happen due to COVID. But when my friend Michelle saw this trip come across her email, she knew I wanted to ski more. She also knew that Rob did not want to ski more, and so she asked me if I wanted to go with her. And we're going. And I guess what it is, will we all be up to what I think while I'm doing it? Will it be fun? That's all based out of what I am thinking. Ok, I know, I know how to create fun skiing or no skiing, actually.

[00:11:24] So if I only ski one day, that's OK because I still can have fun. But again, not everybody enjoys skiing, right? So I was just coaching my cousin through her disappointment and her frustration that her 11 year old daughter does not think skiing is fun. And my cousin and her family, they even have a ski house and they go on family trips to ski in. The 11 year old doesn't want to go out on the slopes. Why? Because she doesn't have thoughts that create joy or excitement around skiing. Instead, she likes to hang back by the fire and read, and you know. I told my cousin, so what? If she doesn't want to go skiing, if she can create her own fun while others are skiing, then it's all good because what's the most important on this trip that she skis or that everybody has fun? And my cousin could quickly answer that question. So she now had a different framework through which to approach her 11 year olds not wanting to ski. Think about haunted houses or scary movies. Same thing. My daughter and husband love thrillers. I don't think they're fun at all. And the list could go on roller coasters, running, cooking, math, you name it. Fun is really an experience that we have the ability to create for ourselves, and in some circumstances it might be easier than others. But what I'm going to do now is I want to give you five ways you can try on five things you can try on or elements or thoughts you can try on to make things more fun.

[00:13:13] Ok, and these things that I'm going to talk about. They can be routine and mundane and easy. Like, imagine if you could make making dinner or cleaning the bathroom or grocery shopping or responding to emails that you can all be fun. Or as we talk through these optional thoughts. Think about things that are big and complicated and hard, like doubling your income or losing 20 pounds or being more present with your spouse. You can apply these thoughts to any area of your life to make it more fun, and I kind of recommend that you do. All right, so let's get started number one, and this is a concept that Jody Moore introduced to me, and I think it's kind of brilliant. It's the thought that you need to be working within your fun zone. Your fun zone, so here's how I picture this. If you've ever been to a trampoline park or facility like a with big, bouncy things like near us, there's something called Sky Zone. Ok, there's usually a sign over the trampoline area that says something like fun zone versus another side of the building says Fueling Zone or the snack bar is or rest zone near the tables in the cubbies. What if all of your work was always done when you were in the fun zone? I just picture this sign hanging above trampolines and I picture it painting painted on the wall nearby and just seeing that that visual or image in my head makes me want to gravitate towards it.

[00:14:54] It's way better than the other zones, don't you think? And when I think about my own fun zone with anything I'm trying to do, whether it be work or work out, there is a space that's not too easy, but not too hard, not too hard. So I would resist it. Ok. It's kind of like this space between too easy and too hard. That space in the middle. I think that's kind of where the fun zone is. When something's too easy, it can get boring. And I sometimes think of it as a waste of my time or efforts, or frustrating in the sense that I tell myself I should be doing something different. Ok, I sometimes I think about this when I'm watching movies on the couch, OK, like anyone can watch a movie and sit on a couch. So sometimes I think that's way too easy. I should be doing something else. Ok, so that's kind of something that's too easy, but I have to wrap my thoughts around it to make it fun. Then there's the things that are too hard that I resist, and I can quickly go from confusion or frustration or overwhelm where I don't want to do anything at all because it's not fun. Ok, and a lot of times this happens with work.

[00:16:13] It happened a little bit with me trying to pack for this ski trip. I just thought of it is fun and I didn't know or thought of it as hard and I didn't want to do it. But when I'm in the fun zone, it's just right. It's kind of like Goldilocks and the three bears in the beds. This one was too soft. This one was too hard. This one was just right. The fun zone is where things are just right. So ask yourself, where are the things that are too easy? I always go to like laundry. I've mastered laundry, by the way. There really isn't anything to learn in the laundry department, and I'm not accessing my brain, right? Anyone can fold towels. Maybe this would be a good opportunity to delegate. Go listen to the podcast on delegating. All right. But we don't always have a chance to delegate something, all right, because sometimes things just need to get done, and we don't always have the opportunity to not do the things that are too hard to because they have to get done as well. So what I suggest is that you ask yourself, how can I make this task harder, like folding laundry or easier, like packing so that you get closer to that middle fun zone? So laundry, sometimes I challenge myself to do it only using my left hand packing can I make it easier by breaking this into parts or by watching Ozarks while I'm packing? Ok.

[00:17:42] Or if it's work, would it be more fun if I went to Starbucks and did it there? Or lately I've been sitting down in my sunroom where the sun always is bright and shiny and working there, and that actually makes work more fun. So whatever it takes to get to the fun zone. Ok, work in your fun zone. That was number one. Here we go. Number two. The next thing that you can do to make things more fun is to add humor. Now, this is easy for me because humor is my number one character strength. And if you don't know about character strengths, I recommend that you check out the via character strengths survey. There will be a link to it in my show notes, but to bring humor into any situation, you have to be able to laugh at yourself or the situation. And one of my favorite lines is you can't make this shit up. So when I am faced with something challenging or unexpected, the way I work through it and make it more fun is to think of it as another episode in my podcast that I have yet to start with my friend Michelle. We think we're going to have a podcast called We Can't Make This Shit Up, and I'll save that whole story for another day, but you get the point. If I do something and I think, Well, Andrea, I cannot believe you did that or I cannot believe that happened to you.

[00:19:09] And I can laugh about it again. I can't make this shit up, right? It becomes more fun. I'm adding humor to the situation. So with these types of things and circumstances and experiences, they're usually things that could happen to any of us, but things that we don't expect to happen to us. So add a little humor in and it becomes much more fun. So this helps me with parenting a lot. So last week, my daughter had 50 of her closest friends over for her birthday, and they were all in my basement. My basement is not huge, by the way. And they were fine and they had a great time. But when it was time to leave, they were so loud outside at midnight on my residential street that I was super nervous the police were going to show up. They didn't thank God, but it was in that moment that I had to laugh a little because I had been so worried about when they were inside. And getting there, I hadn't at all thought about the exit process, not the fact of how they were going to get home, but the exit process like between my front door and getting in a vehicle. And I had not even thought about the possibility that they could be too loud and I would be stressing over it. So I kind of thought to myself, I can't make this shit up.

[00:20:28] And I had fun with it. I kind of went out there with them, said a few things to them, made them come back inside, so. How can you add humor to any situation? Which brings me to number three. How can we make a game of whatever is happening? How can we make it a game? Remember back to the license plate game you used to play in the car? My mom made that up to make long drives more fun. Did your mom make that up? And I used to try to count the number of minivans in the carpool line when my kids were little. That was kind of another version of the license plate game in a way. And that made the carpool line a lot more fun. Because inevitably, there would be a grandparent driving their adult child's minivan, attempting to buckle the grandchild into the four point harness or five point harness, right? So that even made the game even more fun, but I was paying attention to all the minivans in the carpool line. Ok, so how can you make work your work a game? Can you see how many times you use the word create when writing out a podcast? Can you see how many different color tops people have on on the Zoom call? Can you ask that everyone type a word into the chat that reminds them of summer when it's snowing out? Whatever it is. Can you make a game of it even emptying the dishwasher? How can you do that? With the least amount of reach ins to the dishwasher, does this mean, for example, I've tried this, does it mean that I have to take four glasses out with one hand, right? Emptying the dishwasher can be a game, so it's fun to win a game, right? But it's also fun to play a game.

[00:22:22] So I ask myself, even when it comes to preparing for my event in April, achieve more, do less. How can I make registrations a game for me and I love tech? So I learned and started using something called Project Broadcast, which is a texting tool which has made this whole registration process for me, creating it a whole lot more fun. How can I make preparing content to share with my clients and you, my podcast audience? A game? Right. Making anything a game really removes the seriousness of it all. Even losing weight. I made that somewhat of a game, too. Right. It was like I was. I thought about it as I was trying to pass certain levels on a video game, and every time I lost two pounds, I got to another level. You can make anything you want into a game. All right, number four. Let Santa carry the sack. There's nothing in your world that needs to be heavy or serious. I notice with my clients that they often take reaching goals as serious work, and I want to question.

[00:23:49] Does it have to be so serious, because does taking things seriously make it easier to reach the goal? Does it make it more doable? Does it make it more likely to be accomplished? No, no and no. So something that I have noticed. Ok. Is that I have way more traction in my own business when I don't take it so seriously, when I have fun with it. And when you say I just want this to happen, I want to reach the goal. I want to make X number of dollars or lose x number of pounds so that then I will feel great or I'll feel successful or I'll feel excited or joy or will have proved myself that kind of thinking. It might seem useful and you might say, Well, when I reach the goal, I'll be so much more motivated if I tell myself that that goal is super important and serious. But in reality, are you more motivated? Is it more useful or would thinking about how much fun you are having in the process of getting to the goal? Would that be better and would it change things for you? So this reminds me of the podcast I did on passion, aiding the process or the journey of finding your passion. And I talked a lot about how the fun is really in the process, not in the finding of the passion, like finding the holy grail. Ok. The fun really doesn't come at the end.

[00:25:24] It comes along the way. So think about it isn't planning a vacation fun. Sometimes the excitement is just as much fun as the actual trip. If we allow it to be, if we make a burden, make the planning a burden or stressful or heavy, then it's not. But try not to take anything so seriously. And if you don't have to use your business or career as a way to build your confidence, you need to have confidence in order to build it. And there's always a way to feel confident. Now you don't have to wait, but you might say I won't be able to pay my bills if I don't reach that goal. Right. And that makes it so serious. But I'm going to tell you, my friends, there is always a way to pay your bills. We figure it out. So if you can get to a place of this is going to be fun. Then you will be 10x ing your efficacy because the energy you're going to bring to any situation is going to be infectious and it will foster, I promise, more creativity. It's way more useful than stress. So like, for example, I got way creative in planning my for my event when I decided that this didn't have to be heavy and stressful and I figured out ways to make it fun. All right. Here we go, last one. Number five comes from my days in college where I earned my psychology degree and number five is on your quest to create fun, engage all of your senses.

[00:27:07] All five senses taste, touch, see, smell and hear. And there is true research out there that the more senses you engaged, the more pleasurable things are. And I've had two experiences thinking with this sort of psychology of the senses and fun recently. And one I mentioned a little bit ago was that the fact that on the days when I'm not recording podcasts in my basement closet like I'm doing right now or coaching via Zoom, I often sit in our sunroom, which has windows on three sides, and I feel like I'm in nature. I can hear birds, I see all the green or yellow or white or blue or whatever color it is outside, and I am way more creative. I write some of my best emails in there. So have you ever wondered why there are certain spaces in your home or outside your home that feel more fun to you? That might be why, because you're engaging more of your senses. And another recent event where I realized this five senses and fun connection was over last weekend. My husband and I attended a mixology class and we made two drinks, and part of the mixologist presentation was about how a great drink involves way more than taste. It involves your sense of smell and touch, even sound or hearing gets involved when you hear a shaker or you stir something.

[00:28:41] And that's why those drinks sometimes taste so good. We we are using all of our senses, and that makes things way more fun. I mean, think about playlists, too. I have been using more playlists in the background while I work. Why? Because it makes working so much more fun. Like as I was writing the outline for this podcast, I had a Spotify station on called Happy made it way more fun. Ok, and here's a bonus. Here's the bonus one. Ok. This kind of comes from master coach Brooke Castillo, and she says that there's nothing better than having fun. There's no reason you can't make everything fun, especially if you remember that you are the fun, not the thing. You are the fun, my friends, not the thing. And this is so true. We bring the fun to ourselves. We are fun makers. We are fun machines. We create the fun. Now I am not a jokester or definitely a class clown, but I do believe that I can make anything fun. And this is served me many times in life when my kids were little and it served me when I've been growing my business. I've noticed that my relationship with my husband has even changed when I've thought about how I can make our relationship more fun. So sometimes I might hold myself back and play small. I would admit, and that's OK, but that is not really who I am if I clean up my thoughts and I can go big.

[00:30:28] More often than not, and that makes things fun. And aren't we drawn to people who are themselves authentic, not phony? We love authenticity. And if you authentically you authentically are fun, it is innate. So when you find yourself saying, well, that wasn't fun. I want you to say back, I'm sure it wasn't because you didn't make it fun. And if your kids or your colleagues say, well, that won't be fun, say back, it won't be fun unless you make it fun. So try all of this on remind yourself, it's even fun to try new things. You can create fun, just like you can create a life like we talked about in the last episode or create wealth like we talked about two weeks ago, it all can be fun. So my friends go have fun this week with fun this week. Have thoughts that make everything fun and as a reminder, go register for achieve more, do less because we are definitely going to have fun there. If there's still spots left at the time of the recording, we're probably about half full. So I hope to see you there. Achieve more do less salt live. I'm about to have fun there with you. So have a great rest of your day and week. And remember, there's always time to level up. Thanks for listening to the Time to Level Up podcast with me, your host, Andrea Libros, if you know someone who could benefit from listening to this episode.

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[00:32:34] Start being a liver living that upgraded life. Head over to my website and schedule a call right there on that call. We'll start changing the way you think and act so that you can have the freedom to achieve the impossible in life and business and have the resources to do it. You deserve an upgrade. Let's do it.