This past week, I’ve been getting signs I’ve interpreted to be about having more fun. From a post from a friend and professor of mine asking “What do Gen X, overachievers do for fun?? Beyond reading books, podcasts, & travel…” to day 15 of Gabby Bernstein’s Manifesting challenge, “Follow the Fun,” it seems the universe is whispering to me, “Girl, have more fun!”

I responded to my friend’s post, “Hiking. Gardening.” Both of these are fun for me, but they are also part of what I do for a living. Hiking is part of what we offer through Eclectic Well-Being and gardening is now part of owning Eclectic Sanctuary.

Does my fun always revolve around work?

My mom likes to read. So do I. She reads romance novels. At 84 and with her eyesight diminishing, she is reading once again, Gone With the Wind. What am I reading? Becoming, by Michele Obama. What did I just finish reading? The Subtle Art of Not Giving F*ck by Mark Mason. Is my reading fun or personal development? So, I ponder…

What is Fun?

As usual, I go to dictionary.com to ensure I understand the definition of fun. Maybe, after all these 58 years, I don’t know what fun is. 🤷‍♀️

I confirm that Fun is a noun. It is “something that provides mirth or amusement.”

What actually is mirth?

Check that definition and it seems it’s all about laughing.

Does this mean my fun must include laughing? I don’t really laugh much when I’m hiking or gardening. But I do find amusement (something that entertains) in both. Watching nature is entertaining, whether it’s on a hike and seeing birds and other forest life or watching my garden bloom. I do find nature quite entertaining, but I wouldn’t say it’s amusing. Amusing is back to that whole mirth thing, something that includes laughter.

Maybe I don’t really experience fun?

I move on to the second definition of fun, “enjoyment or playfulness.” Well finally!  I enjoy hiking! I enjoy gardening. Not sure if they are considered playfulness, but if fun is enjoyment – maybe I do have fun!

But I also enjoy working. Should I include work as part of my fun?

And if I’m in the right mindset, I can make cleaning the house fun. But does that also count as part of my fun activities for the week? In response to my friend’s post, could I say work and cleaning the house?  I think if I did, people would call me crazy.

Why Fun?

I’ve thought about fun before when I noticed I was so engrossed in my coaching and speaking engagements. It’s what inspired Explore Laugh Play, a summer 30-Day Challenge to put more fun in your life.

If you’ve played with me, you know I have plenty of ideas for Play!

In the challenge, we play hopscotch. Make an attempt at building a fort. We blow bubbles and catch fireflies. We explore, we laugh and we play.

Unstructured play is one of the best ways children develop. They learn social skills.

Play engages creativity. Play teaches probelm solving skills. When we allow children to play, we build their confidence and increase their overall well-being.

Adults also benefit from play. Similar to meditation, play allows us to be in the moment. It allows us to detach from responsibility and reduce our stress levels.

Adults also benefit for engaging our creativity and problem-solving skills from play. This usually makes us more productive at work and home.

Playing outdoors, we get fresh air, which helps us sleep better.

And as we age, play produces more grey matter, which is important for memory and reducing our chances of dementia.

What About Having Fun Other Than Through Play?

Catherine Price, author of the book The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again, states that true fun “materializes when we experience the confluence of three psychological states: playfulness, connection, and flow.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/23/well/mind/having-fun-suceeding-coronavirus-pandemic.html)

She goes on to describe playfulness as doing things just for the pleasure of it. Ok, so fun has to be done for the pleasure of it.

Connection is having an experience with another person. It’s developing relationships.

Then flow is that feeling we get when we are so engaged in an activity, that we lose all track of time.

If I understand her correctly, one needs to experience all three: playfulness, connection, and flow, for an activity to be fun!

That opens up many of my daily experiences. Writing this article, part of my work, can be considered fun!  I enjoy writing just for the heck of it. It may be part of my work, but it became work because I enjoy it. And I want my work to be enjoyable. It’s connecting with all of you reading it. And I’m totally in flow!  The only reason I noticed the time was because my stomach started grumbling for lunch!

But is having fun while working enough?

Money, Health, Joy, and Peace

Stan Jacobs, author of  The Dusk And Dawn Master: A Practical Guide to Transforming Evening and Morning Habits, Achieving Better Sleep, and Mastering Your Life  states “To be happy in life, develop at least four hobbies: one to bring you money, one to keep you healthy, one to bring you joy, and one to bring you peace.”

I like this way of thinking, but can we apply it to fun? After all Fun is not Happiness.

However, studies show, having fun does contribute to happiness. And what are hobbies? Aren’t hobbies things we do for fun?

So what if we had something that we did for fun, that also brought in money? If our work, our job, career, or business was also something that we find playful, connecting us and being in flow?

Then, what if we have an activity that is fun but also keeps us healthy? Instead of despising our exercise class or eating cottage cheese because it’s healthy, what if we took dance classes with our spouse and ate a delicious but healthy dinner that we prepared together at a cooking class? Fun, but all healthy things!

Can something fun, bring pure simple joy? Joy comes from the little things in life: playing with a dog, spending time with our kids, going to a Broadway show with sorority sisters. These also are playful, connecting, and engaging flow.

That leaves peace. What do I do for fun that also brings me peace? I love to sit and watch the sunset over Lake Michigan. Waking up to a beautiful sunrise. Practicing Restorative Yoga at home, beside my fireplace with my honey and the cats and the dog. Yes, these are playful, connecting (with my Self and with Spirit) and they always go way too fast.

Back to the Signs

So, why so many signs that I need to have more fun? I feel like my life is filled with fun.

Perhaps it was just a reminder to engage in all areas of fun. I engage regularly in the first two. I am so grateful that my work is fun as I know many who live paycheck to paycheck and at a job they do not consider fun. Being healthy is a choice and I choose to be healthy in a fun way! Mark and I did take dance classes years ago and it’s on my list for us to take some cooking classes at a local place here in St Joe.

But doing things that bring me joy and peace? I do those, but they tend to be less regular, less often and I think for 2023 that needs to change. The change started, but I think the signs were reminding me and ensuring me, that they become more frequent and consistent.

Tonight looks like it may be a perfect sunset. I think I’ll take a drive to the lake with Mark and Ciara and find joy and peace this evening.

Need some inspiration to have more fun in your life? Check out the Free 7-Day MindShift! Shifting your thoughts so that you can have more fun!

The post Do I Have Fun? appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.

Last week I discussed Step 1 which is understanding your spiritual vision, your values, and your WHY! Understanding your purpose and how it relates to the world is the foundation. When we are clear on this, we can easily process everything through this lens. Is it aligned with my spiritual vision, my values and my why?

Step 2 is then finding clarity around the life you want to live. It’s important to be able to visualize it completely and fully.

It’s not about what we DON’T Want

Many times we know exactly what we don’t want. When I worked for Nautica in NYC, I knew I didn’t want to commute an hour and half one way. I knew I didn’t really want to be focused on selling more clothing that most of us really don’t need. I knew I didn’t want to be on call after hours and on weekends. So I would complain and moan about these aspects of my job, but I absolutely had no clarity on what I really wanted.

In 2016 Mark and I bought a yoga studio. By this time I knew I wanted to own my own business and I wanted to improve people’s lives. Did I have clarity that I wanted a yoga studio? Did I have clarity that I wanted not to just own a yoga studio, but that I wanted to be part of a chain of yoga studios?

No I did not. I just knew it was the first step in getting me out of what I didn’t want.

So a year later, in May of 2017, I went into panic.

I had been working my way out of a job by refusing to lay-off my staff and instead offer a plan where I would be the one let go. You may think I was crazy, and perhaps I was; but I knew it was time for me to leave. But I didn’t have the courage in me to just resign and move on.

For one, I had no idea what I did want to do. We had the studio, but I felt like a failure teaching (I was living the paradox of “I’m not good enough.”), and I didn’t feel confident in the whole business. I knew subconsciously that to leave my good-paying, executive job, it was going to have to be from Nautica letting me go. And finally they did!

At first I was thrilled! Excited! Elated! But that quickly wore off once I thought, “what am I going to do now?” I had no plan. The studio didn’t seem like the answer, it was barely breaking even and at that time I didn’t believe it ever would be successful. (I now know this was a deeply-rooted limiting belief – but that’s for another day).

So, for the next year I stumbled through life.

I worried that we would run out of money. I tried my hand at a number of things, like flipping a house that had been vacant for 10+ years and finally landing on coaching. How I got there took many twists and turns.

But I started to go inward, doing some personal development work, going to Tony Robbins Events and I realized what I have always done, no matter my job or volunteer role, was to help others see the best in themselves! It was the main reason I had previously gone back to school for my MBA – so I could be an adjunct professor and work with college students. It’s why at my time in the corporate world I enjoyed writing and giving reviews and midyear updates to my staff! I wanted to see them thrive and I wanted to support them.

Knowing what you love doing is KEY

Once I understood this, I started to gain clarity on the life I wanted to create. I began to have confidence, not just in me, but the yoga studio, in Mark and in the life we were creating.

So in Summer of 2018 I went on a personal solo retreat to the Pocono’s and started creating my life. My first coaching business was created:  Far Cliffs, from Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I decided to create a program that would focus on an individual’s inherent strengths, not skills but character. My work would be helping others find the best inside of them and bring it to the world! I finally had some clarity.

Clarity leads to more clarity.

The thing is, once you notice the change with clarity, you start getting a clearer and clearer picture. By 2019 Mark and I had done some amazing work and we were clear that we wanted to help others. We loved the yoga studio and the community we created, but being part of a franchise made it difficult to do the things we wanted to do. We started to plan our exit: make 2020 the most profitable year yet, making it desirable for someone who wanted to be part of a franchise to buy it so we could go on our own and help others through our coaching!

Well you know what happened in 2020. Covid. We not only had to close our doors, but we also couldn’t find anyone to buy the studio. No one wanted to take that risk at that point in time. Our franchise agreement was ending as well as our lease on the space and we needed to make a decision.

“Should I stay or should I go?” The Clash

The easy decision would have been to stay. We had enough money from Covid loans to keep going at least another 9 months to a year, but that would mean signing on for at least another 2 years, time to get it back to profitable and then time to sell.

We were clear, we didn’t want to be part of the franchise. We wanted to create something of our own. Help people in more ways than just through Yoga. So even with complete understanding that if we didn’t renew our lease and franchise agreement, we would have to close the doors for good and file bankruptcy, that is exactly what we did.

Clarity keeps you living your spiritual vision, your values.

The decision aligned with our values. The decision aligned with the clarity of the life we wanted to create. It was difficult and we were unsure how we would get through; but see, when you have clarity, you don’t settle. You see your future and you don’t take detours or roads that take you away from them, not closer.

So in 2021, Far Cliffs became Eclectic Well-being and we were truly creating a life we love!

When we take the detour, a path not aligned with our values, we Survive, not Thrive.

If it wasn’t for being absolutely clear of what we wanted, we most likely would have resigned to right now  running a franchised yoga studio. We would be surviving, not thriving. So many of us do things to survive because we don’t have a clear vision of what it means to us to be thriving.

If you don’t have a clear vision of what you want your life to be, you will never get to thriving or living in flow. You will simply continue to survive.

Look inside. Think about what kind of life you really want. Do you want to work with others? Do you prefer more alone time? What impact do you want to have? Is your job a means to create your life, or is your job your life and the way to fulfilling your spiritual vision such as in our case?

There are no right or wrong answers here. It is simply taking fine tuning our lenses until we have a sharp crisp image of the life we want.

Next week the final step in Creating a Life You Love… The Power of Decision.

The post Consciously Creating a Life You Love Requires Clarity appeared first on Eclectic Well-Being.