What steps can increase the fun in your life?
Step 1: Before you can develop a plan to increase the amount of fun in your life, you must recognize to what extent you allow fun to enter your life. Answer the following questions in your journal:
-
What does fun mean to you?
-
How do you know when you are having fun?
-
How do you feel when you are having fun?
-
What barriers keep you from having fun?
-
How real are these barriers?
-
What blocking beliefs keep you from having fun?
-
What replacement beliefs do you need in order to have more fun?
-
What new behavior do you need to develop in order to have more fun?
-
What strategies could you follow to insure more fun in your life?
Review the sample list of creative fun activities listed earlier in this chapter:
Step 2: Once you have a picture of how you react to fun in your life, you are ready for the fun self-analysis activity.
Having Fun Yet? Self-Analysis Activity
Create a chart in your journal with six columns: Fun Activities; Date; Expense; Persons; Time; and Years. Use the following directions to fill in the chart and to answer the questions about your values concerning fun.
1. Brainstorm a list of at least forty fun activities. If you can think of more than forty, continue the first column until your brainstorming is exhausted.
2. Under the date column indicate when you last did each of the fun activities. Review the results of the completed date column.
3, Under the expense column indicate the cost of each fun activity listed, i.e., free, under $5, $15 to $25, $25 to $50, $50 to $100, over $100. Review the results of the completed expense column.
4. Under the persons column indicate whether each fun activity is done alone, with another person, with family, with a group, etc. Once you have completed the persons column, review your responses.
-
How important are people in your fun activities?
-
What role do your spouse, lover, family, friends play in these activities?
-
Is fun rare because you only do it with certain people?
-
How comfortable are you with yourself?
-
How much do you depend on others in order to have fun?
5. Under the time column indicate if each fun activity is usually done on vacations (large blocks of time), weekends, or daily (consistently). Review the results of the time column.
-
Does most fun and enjoyment get postponed for large blocks of time?
-
Do your large block of time fun activities cost a lot, need a great deal of planning with others, and thus occur infrequently?
6. Under the years column indicate how many more years you can envision yourself enjoying each of the fun activities listed. Review the results of the years column.
-
Is each fun activity temporary or lifelong?
-
If the fun activity is temporary, what keeps you from participating in it now while you can still enjoy it?
-
What makes the fun activity lifelong versus temporary for you?
Once you have completed the chart, answer the following questions in your journal
-
What did this activity tell you about the fun in your life?
-
How many of the fun activities listed did you experience in the past year?
-
How many of the fun activities listed are daily events?
-
How great a barrier to your having fun now is the phrase: I'm too busy?
-
How great a barrier to your having fun now is: It's too expensive'' or “It costs too much money?
-
How great a barrier to your having fun now is: It can't be done alone?
-
How great a barrier to your having fun now is: It takes too much time?
-
How great a barrier to your having fun now is: I have a lifetime in which to do that?
-
How valid are your excuses for not having fun?
Step 3: Once you have completed your fun self-analysis, you are ready to make a fun plan of action. In your journal write your plan of action following this outline.
My Plan of Action to Put Fun into My Life
My goal is to recapture fun in my life. I intend to put fun in my life according to this plan of action.
1. I will schedule the following time daily for a fun activity:
The following activities will be part of my daily fun schedule:
2. I will schedule the following time for a weekly fun' activity:
The following activities will be part of my weekly fun schedule:
3. I will schedule the following time for a monthly fun activity:
The following activities will be alternatives for my monthly fun schedule:
4. I will schedule the following time for a yearly fun activity:
The following activities will be alternatives for my yearly fun schedule:
-
I will tell one joke a day.
-
I will have a good, healthy laugh every day.
-
I will change my schedule, breaking a tradition, to let flexibility into my life. (For example, drive a different way to work, speak to one new person every day, turn the TV off for 24 hours.)
-
I will lighten up my serious attitude at least once a day.
-
I will find pleasure on a daily basis in watching myself be the silly, foolish, idiosyncratic person that I am.
-
I will surround myself with people who can laugh at themselves in a healthy manner and who can make me laugh as well. These people and I will be mutual fun-seekers for health and sanity.
I agree to the above Fun Plan of Action. Sign your name and date.
Name Date
Step 4: Now that you have completed your fun plan of action, you are ready to put fun into your life.
If after a period of time you find yourself backsliding, return to Step 1 and begin again.
