Great Race considers themselves the Masters of Fun and so this is a topic dear to our heart. We live in stressful times but having fun shouldn’t be a complicated concept. In its bare essence, having fun is simply doing just anything that you enjoy, that makes you feel happy. So here is a little list of why exactly you must have a healthy dose of fun.
FUN BOOSTS YOUR OVERALL PRODUCTIVITY
We have just so many things in our lives to stress us out enough to lose our minds. While there is not much that we can do about the you-know-what things in our lives, we can certainly try to get ourselves enough strength to face all of it. Fun is a way of building up a term called ’emotional resilience’. Simply, making sure you have fun now and then creates space to allow you to think more clearly in other aspects of your life. Fun polishes your purpose, one can say.
YOU LIVE A BETTER LIFE
No, you aren’t here to just live a monotonous, boring, stressful life and you shouldn’t just be living to work. If this is where your life is headed, here is your intervention. You are supposed to explore the unexplored and follow your hearts desires. Sure- we can’t all throw in our jobs and become professional travel instagrammers- but we can identify moments and activities that are of value to us and do more of them! Creating time for recreation and making this a priority boosts your awareness of your self determination. It reminds you that you have choices and you can design your life to incorporate more of what you want. Life is too precious and short to waste it on deadlines and frugality.
DISCOVER YOURSELF
We don’t want to get all mystical on you, that’s between you and your belief system. But you are the only person you have to live with forever! So you should invest in getting to know yourself better. Having fun allows you to become clear about your own likes and dislikes, your preferences, comforts and challenges. You might even find new, interesting aspects about yourself that you never happened to notice or have been ignoring for a while. So yeah, you are in for surprises as well!
GUH, IT’S JUST SO HEALTHY!
We aren’t medical professionals but there are a bunch of studies that link stress to bad health outcomes and fun to good health outcomes. When you are smiling or, even better, laughing more you strengthen your immune system. Lessening stress is linked to greater energy and motivation as well as a bunch of other good stuff relating to fighting illness and disease. The cheerful and positive feeling you get while doing something you enjoy is like a dose of a nutritional supplement. Also it’s free!
BETTER RELATIONSHIPS
Above: NCL Mini Amazing Race Conference Breakout
Having fun not just good for ourselves, but also for our work colleagues, families and friends. You might already have noticed (if you haven’t, let me tell you) that stressful relationships don’t really last. Haven’t you noticed that your favourite relative are often the ones who treated you with the most patience and told the best jokes? Aren’t you and your partner the best when both of you are sharing your joys instead of your stresses? Being patient and joyful and being able to share that isn’t simply something that some of us are born with and some aren’t. You can cultivate your own emotional generosity by investing in yourself through fun. Any relationship guru would agree that the more moments you are enjoying together, the more fun you are having, the stronger your relationship or bonds become.
I HAVEN’T HAD FUN IN SO LONG, DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS?
We’d love to see you having more fun! While the definition of having fun definitely varies from individual to individual, there are some basic things that we can suggest to get you going.
- Start working on a list of things that makes you happy or doing which, you really enjoy and feel great. These are often things we put off because the bills need paying or the dog needs a bath or you can insert your various responsibilities here…. Do you like craft, do you want to brew your own beer, do you want to put fairy lights over your whole house? What seemingly frivolous thing do you put off because it’s not a priority! Start there…
- Know that it will be a gradual process to start making some real changes, especially if you have locked yourself up for long. You could start having fun every week or every day- it’s up to you.
- You don’t have to stay in your comfort zone… Perhaps you think skydiving would be great but the stress of organising isn’t fun right? Fun takes commitment and purpose and yes, perhaps a bit of organising. Be prepared to make the sacrifice because to quote some campaign… you’re worth it.
- Remember- having fun might make you productive but do not necessarily be ‘productive’. It is alright if you waste a few hours a week just chilling. The key is, are you happy? Therefore it was productive.
So why do you need to have fun? Because you must. If you need a fun intervention- feel free to contact us. Our games may be just what the doctor ordered.
