Time to play!

Do you ever feel bogged down in how ‘stressed’ or ‘busy’ you are? Good news - time to play! 

Sounds crazy eh? It's true, for many of us, the first thing we think about when we wake up in the morning is how much we have to do that day, the last thing on our minds is how important it is for us to find time to play 

Well what do you know, it should be, because a secret solution for this feeling of being bogged down and feeling stressed - is Being Playful!

It's such an unusual idea, to think about the importance of being playful for us as adults, we thought we would share with you some of the ways you can benefit from Being Playful

1. Being Playful helps us replace worry and anxiety with curiosity and passion

Look around and you will see a lot us have a bad habit of worrying. The thing is, we think worrying is a normal - even healthy response - to our volatile world. Actually, this is not the case. We can swap this restricting habit of worrying with releasing beliefs, behaviours and mind-sets - we call them Releasing practices. It is not easy - it takes self-awareness, self-regulation and regular practice - but it is doable. We know, because we have done it!

2. Being Playful increases the amount of options we have 

This is because, when we are playful we can see things in a different light - we see things from new perspectives. When we create a regular practice of looking at things from new perspectives, we are able to make new connections, we are more innovative. We also can see possibilities we missed previously, because we are no longer stuck looking through the same old lens. We see the world with fresh eyes. This gives us more hope and optimism and can also build our confidence

3. Being Playful helps us strengthen our connections

On dark winters evenings, after a long day at work, do you ever glance through warm, glowing windows to see families laughing together round kitchen tables?

Today a lot of even the most seemingly successful people share a tragic secret. We are typically ashamed to admit. It is a consequence of a lot of our choices for how we live today. We are profoundly lonely

This is less about being isolated and more about not feeling truly connected to the people we do have in our lives

Being Playful can make our relationships more intimate and meaningful - and this really is the cure to feeling lonely, because Being Playful helps us to be vulnerable and intimate when it may otherwise be difficult for us - and the most powerful part of any relationship is intimacy

4. Being Playful helps us refresh, reinvigorate and recharge! 

Now more than ever, from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep -  we spend most of our time calculating - "what do I have to do, by when today" - we even give this names like ‘goal-setting’ or ‘productivity’

In order to keep our energy and focus at the optimum level, it is key that we are able to reinvigorate, refresh and recharge

Our energy is like a battery, if we do not recharge our battery it will die and we will not have any energy to do what we need to do

One of the secrets a lot of us forget as adults, is that a key way to recharge our battery, is to play!

This means doing something new, a bit different - so we challenge our brains in new ways - so this is about high challenge, low pressure. This is not flopping in front of Netflix - this is joining a team for a sport we haven’t played since childhood, this is learning a new skill like pottery or painting. This is taking a walk outside - and leaving our phones in our pockets! This is relishing in a little 'nonsense'

In these playful ways we gain real relaxation and recharging and can feel reinvigorated and ready for the next challenge. As Dr Seuss says, “I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells”

5. Being Playful helps us develop a more holistic sense of who we are - we are more than today's tasks

Being Playful is often the first step to trying out new roles, new hobbies, new passions and even new projects at work. This helps us live a more balanced life and can lead to new opportunities both at work and at home

A lot of us live our lives stuck with, “all our eggs in one basket” - we pour all our energy into one area of our life - stuck doing the same tasks, in the same way, every day!

This means when unexpected change comes along, unless we are able to adapt quickly, it affects our whole sense of self

Being Playful means we are more resilient, able to adapt to change more quickly, and create a more holistic sense of who we are - at home, at work, in our whole life - as a partner, a parent, a team-player, a friend, a leader and an enthusiast for a particular sport or hobby. Look at children and you will see they do this naturally, they try new skills, they make up games, they join new teams, they try out a lot of stuff to see what will make them laugh the hardest, and have the most fun

Being Playful is about looking at our lives at a holistic level - like we said, we are more than just our work and task list

Because we are so passionate about the benefits of having a more playful mind-set - we created an Upskill (our name for a course or masterclass) called Being Playful you can discover it HERE - why don’t you give it a try, it will wake up your brain cells and you can see what happens!