Last quarter, we discussed making some deliberate choices about how we spend our time before naturally settling back into old routines. It has been well-studied that the best time for significant change is during disruption, and I think we can all agree there’s never been a more disruptive time in our modern history than now.
If you did play along last quarter, making some changes for the better, now is a great time to quickly check in with yourself to ensure you’re not falling back into old patterns (which is so easy to do in the beginning). Let’s make sure that any positive changes you made stick—and you’re truly turning having more fun into a habit.
This quarter, I had conversations with Jill Vialet and Christian Ehrlich, two amazing thought leaders when it comes to fun (links to the transcripts are below, and I hope you enjoy checking them out). Something Jill shared during our conversation this month has really stuck with me, “… don’t miss the opportunities to walk through completely bizarre, open doors that lead you in a direction you didn’t anticipate. Because often those side trips are what make life the most rewarding.”
With the world locked down for so long, many of us have been deprived of the gift of awe and wonder—which is a shame because, as we’ve previously learned from Todd Kashdan and Lisa Feldman Barrett, these types of experiences not only improve our well-being, but also make us feel more connected.
The best part is that reconnecting with awe and wonder can be as simple as taking a 15-minute walk outdoors. Recent research from UCSF (as well as other contributing universities) found that simply experiencing a new environment through walking while “looking at everything with fresh, childlike eyes” has the power to elicit “greater joy and prosocial positive emotion.”
Given that it is this easy if we’re open to it, what can you do over the next three months to invite more awe and wonder into your life?
Jill Vialet is a successful social entrepreneur, founding her first nonprofit when she was only 23. In 1996, she launched Playworks, a leading national nonprofit enabling the power of safe, fun, and healthy play at schools across the United States. Jill’s TEDMED talk about the power of play has been viewed over 25,000 times. She recently authored a new book on play, titled Why Play Works: Big Changes Start Small. Read our interview about why play works here.
Christian Ehrlich is a professor at Oxford Brookes Business School, where he serves the university as a senior lecturer in Organisational Behaviour. He’s the author of the new book “Happiness Through Goal Setting.” His work has been published in various academic journals, including Personality and Individual Differences and the Journal of Positive Psychology. Read our interview about how our choice of goals affects our happiness here.
A lot of adventure and life experience this quarter, but the highlight for sure was an evening with Nate Bargatze—one of the funniest comedians out there.
If you could use a laugh today, here is Nate telling 8 minutes of dad jokes.
Last quarter, I announced that my team has been putting together an online course covering the material contained in my upcoming book, The Fun Habit. Thanks to the 25 folks that helped us kick the tires on the first beta version of the course.
We want to run one more test cohort through the material before the course officially goes public, so we are again offering 25 spots for free to anyone committed to trying the course out and providing honest feedback. If that is you, please sign up here for a chance to be a potential beta-tester.
Until we talk again, wishing you and your loved ones a bountiful amount of rewarding side trips of awe and wonder in the months to come.
Yours in fun,
Mike Rucker, Ph.D.
