That Job You Want? Give It To Yourself.

You know, you really can give yourself any job you want.

So maybe your business card says Director of Marketing, Math Wizard or Founder/CEO. Maybe you're temporarily in transition. All you have to do is locate your own personal life-work mission. Imagine this job description is the story with the magic subtext -- one that gives an important lifeline to What You Do. Your personal job description/mission might not be what people immediately see, but it's what they feel.

For example, maybe you write copy for The Man, but in your heart you're a harbinger of diplomacy among people trying to communicate in different styles. You can bring all those clashing leitmotifs into harmony. So you give yourself the title of Creative Diplomat. I knew of a real estate broker years ago who called herself (privately) a lifestyle coach and focused on helping couples have the best experience possible as they navigated through the prickly process of choosing a new home. If you're in transition, find an archetypal role you think is yours to the core and start playing that out in daily life with friends, family, volunteer work, at the local coffee shop, on informational interviews as much as possible.  I mean, really -- who's to stop you?

Personal example: I had a job as a technical writer at a company where I was not producing the most world-enlightening copy. However, what did matter to me was that I brought fun  to the work place. Fun to me means my co-workers feel engaged and enthusiastic about their work, there's happy collaboration, there's learning and excelling and plenty of laughing. It makes work meaningful, rewarding and something to even (GASP) look forward to. So being the Fun nurturer was my personal mission and job description.

Now, how about you? What job description might you give yourself that brings your true essence into your work life and the lives of others?

Have fun giving yourself your own job title. If you come up with something, share!

xo

What Do You Love To Do?

If you want to have more fun, feel more engaged, wag your tail more, ask yourself one very important question: Am I doing enough of the things I love to do?

I'm talking daily life Loves, like: cooking, reading, sports, movies, walking, hobbies, enough time with your favorite people.

Start with a love list

• Write a list of the things you love to do. (See examples above and expand; anything goes.)
• Next, fill the list out with some context, i.e.: I love to cook with my kids. I love to trail run with friends. I love going to a matinee by myself. I love reading in a coffee shop surrounded by the smell of coffee and sweet pastries... you get the picture.

How many of the items on your list -- that are within your control -- are you doing? How many of them are doable but they're falling through the cracks?

Pick one of them up. Pick up another. Step up and make small tiny efforts over time to make these Loves happen.

Fun is important. Having more engagement, laughter, tail-wagging, purring hums of contentedness -- this is the stuff that makes life and all the gorgeous struggles worthwhile!

But it takes effort. Fun doesn't happen without you turning the wheel. It's not insta-delivery service falling out of the sky, Surprise!

Just for the record ...

I asked myself this question recently when I felt myself sinking into an existential funk. I wrote down a list of Loves, five items and it took about ten seconds. When I looked at my list I saw what was missing: "with others" was the context part that was falling through the crack. So the following week I went to work on adding the "with others,"  by finding professional groups and doing a bit of networking. And my funk drifted away once it had focus and an assignment. Which is ongoing (don't drop the ball folks).

Don't forget the high five

When you write down your list of things you love to do, don't forget to pay tribute to this: Where are you succeeding? Then, give yourself a high five -- before asking:

And what do you need to add back into your life?

Start with one item, shine the sun of your affection and attention on it and go!

Hint: The things we love to do, we love for a reason. They're part of our gift, our purpose, our natural expression. So the more you do these Loves, the better life is, for you and everyone around you.

If you make this a project that lights up your curiosity, you'll find your entire outlook changing. Enjoy, and share what you find there.

xo t

Did You Have "Fun" This Weekend?

Everyone aims to have a fun weekend. (Or at least we're all told to!) There's fun and there are the duties of errands, kids' sports, home improvement projects, family time, friends time, hobby time, sports time, alone time, nap time, movies, reading, cooking -- Jesus, that's a lot to fit into a couple days. It's amazing more of us don't call in sick with a mini-nervous breakdown Monday morning.

Of course fun is relative. But I've never heard someone say "I need to have less fun."

If you like the idea of having more Fun, consider this:

• Define what fun feels like.
• How do you know you're having fun?

Take this question around with you for the next week. Fun might show up as a hum in your belly, an opening in your chest or the sound of lots of laughter. It can be jumping in the lake, running hard with friends, doing engaging work, watching a movie on the couch -- it can surprise you. But when you spot it, take note. 

I once discovered my fun hum kicking in while doing laundry and cooking. I was having a great time doing domestic arts on a Sunday night preparing for the week. Consequently, I cooked more that week and had more enjoyable evenings. What made it fun was that I was in motion and creating something, a combo that works for me but I often give into laziness and the story of "I don't feel like cooking." But when I do it, my evening is so much more fun; I eat better, sleep better and so it goes. You probably have your version of cooking on a sunday eve.

Sometimes we have fun without knowing it because we haven't defined that fun feeling. But once you lock into it, you'lll notice when it shows up. You'll start to have more fun -- and you'll be able to make it happen. I'm talking about simple, everyday but meaningful fun.

So what does fun feel like for you? Take this question out into your week, keep a fun notebook. See what you find there.

xo, t

“I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun.” — Katharine Hepburn

The Fun Experiment: Who Wants More?

"I need to have more fun."

"I'm not having enough fun."

I hear these two statements a lot.

From friends, coaching clients, colleagues, all kinds of adults. I say adults because I don't think kids talk about their fun index.

And lately I've been feeling a bit of a fun deficit myself. 

Last week I had a fruitful conversation with my friend and coaching colleague Stacy, in which we started deconstructing FUN.

• What is Fun?
• Why do we all want it so much?
• Why is there such a deficit?
• What if we're actually having fun and just don't know it?
• How do people identify their type of Fun and build more of it into their lives?
• How do you make shifts when yesterday's fun is today's boredom warmed over?

And so the Fun Experiment begins.

What Is Fun?

According to the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, fun is defined, in part, as:

noun 1 light-hearted pleasure or amusement. ... 3 playfulness or good humour. adjective ... enjoyable.

For now I am personaly defining Fun as something that brings me a sense of enjoyment and gives me the feeling of wagging my tail. Usually it has a physical component. In other words, it's not a state of mind. It's more of a state of body.

I have a lot of fun by playing with others: skiing moguls and swimming my shoulders off with my masters team; trail running, writing with groups and giving workshops; running the golf course at dusk with my niece and nephew, going to a job with great people and making them laugh and write like pirates, helping people see how kick-ass creative they are, reading in bed, daydreaming out the window of a plane traveling over the Grand Canyon. I've had fun doing errands and cooking and even cleaning and purging -- definitely purging. Some of it I know is fun, some of the fun moments surprise me.

And some days, I'm just not having any fun at all. That's okay too. The plan is not to be Stepford Spouses on Xanax here.

The point is to identify what Good Fun means for each individual and each frame of life, and build on the activities that make us feel more playful, creative and tail-waggingly fun.

What If You're Having Fun and Don't Know It?

"I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun." -- Katharine Hepburn

Part of my fun experiment is corralling what is already in existance around us. We all have full lives and most of us have created our lives with facets of things we like, we're talented at, we even love and adore; fun includes doing these activities with people we care about. Fun can be alone time. Hobbies, arts, families, work, sports.

In other words, the ingredients of  fun are  already there.

Maybe it's just learning how to use the parts of our lives in new ways. Or approach things differently. Or lose a few of the un-fun activities that we thought were fun and thread in a few new things. Purge, then add.

Like any success in life: It helps to have a goal and know where you're going and better yet -- know what that end-goal, in this case FUN looks like, feels like, tastes like, sounds like so that you're not sleep walking through the good times of life.

I'm going to start by looking at the components of Fun in my life and seeing how I can build on the successful parts and enhance my life in all kinds of positive ways.

I'm also really interested in sustainable fun. Along with the peaks and valleys of fun, what are ways to have the mountainscapes that are more undulating and consistent day in and day out?

I have to give a shout out to Gretchen Rubin's book The Happiness Project, which got me thinking about the daily life efforts and actions we take to improve our general emotional well-being. And using myself as a guinea pig which means I might actually have more fun.

So, here's to Fun, and more of it -- however you might define fun, today.

xo, t