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Not Having Fun? You’re Doing It ALL Wrong!!
Filed under: Conscious Creation, Fun, Inspired Action, Intention, Life, happiness
I’m the Queen of Taking Inspired Action and Following My Fun n Feel Good!
But sometimes even Queens can forget to put their crowns on.
Ever gotten all gung ho about a new idea? Gotten really excited about it, thought about it day and night and joined a 4 month program that would help bring it to life?
Which is all well and good you know.
Ever been so consumed by it that it wasn’t fun anymore? Stayed up past 3am thinking, woken up late, felt overwhelmed and tired all day long? I have.
Whooaa!
Even though it’s only been a few days, it’s so not how I run my life!
Somewhere between the grand idea and today, I let my Fun Factor slide. For some reason, thinking about this new business seemed more like work than play (unlike my coaching practice – setting this up was pure fun!).
Ever taken action from a totally-uninspired-low-vibe-space even when you know better? Yep, me too.
As I explored why, it struck me that sometimes, we tend to get too serious about things that are really important to us (I call it getting “significant”). It’s as though by taking it “seriously”, we’ll appear to be more responsible or capable.
We’ve yet to embrace the concept that taking something on doesn’t mean we have to give up having fun with it! Or that we can be “serious” about fun and committed to what we want without getting all tied up in knots.
Lifetime of “work = work, play = play” messages anyone? Well, it just doesn’t work like that anymore!
If one of your values is Fun/Play (like mine), then you know that the more you lose sight of it, the harder it gets to accomplish your goals. And the more action you take, the less you end up doing. Funny how that can happen.
So it was with that Thunk! Clunk! in my brain – The downstream way is to feel good first! Do what ups your vibe, gives you energy and makes you feel good. THEN look at your to-do list and what else needs to be done.
Don’t even TOUCH or do anything till you’ve spent a few minutes connecting with what makes you happy and energetic, k? All you need is 5 minutes or less so don’t tell me you don’t have the time. Make it a priority.
(Btw, love how this is turning into a series of “what I learned from the last few days” posts!)
I’m a smart cookie. Soon’s I remembered that, I changed it around. I don’t get out of bed without a quick 5 minutes of meditation (getting out of bed and meditating felt like work, so I stay in now).
The first thing I do when I turn on the computer now? Nope, not email.
Music!
The second? Dancing to the Music.
Right here in my living room cum office cum cubbyhole apartment.
Then I call a friend or someone I’d like to connect with for a little check in/chat. Doing this yesterday was so awesome that my fun factor went through the roof! I chatted with one friend and brainstormed crazy business ideas and names with another.
Got SO energised that the rest of the day was 100 times more productive and fun than the last 2 weeks have been.
And I got to play with these concepts again:
- If I’m not having fun, I’m doing it all wrong.
- Fun starts with feeling good about what I’m doing at any given time.
- Raise your energy first before you tackle the rest of it.
- Plugging away is NOT inspiring!
Ps: As I was writing this post, I took about 2 breaks to dance to Chris Brown’s Forever and Rihanna’s Please Don’t Stop The Music. So much fun!
Let’s recap shall we?
Tia’s Top Tips for Productivity:
- Start day with quick 5 minute meditation / intention setting
- Check in with yourself every couple of hours – how are you feeling?
- If your work’s starting to drag, give yourself a 5 minute FUN break.
- Play music and dance to bring out creativity
- Or phone a friend / someone who inspires you
- Indulge in your chosen “breaktivity” and let it UP your energy level
- Then take some fantastic inspired action
- Oh and one last time – make it FUN, dude!
‘Cos when you’re floating downstream you’ll find that the EAC you were looking for, fighting your way through to find, was the very same one you were already floating in.
In case I lost you there, here’s a wee recap from Finding Nemo (watch 1st 2 minutes):
Marlin: OK, Crush. I need to get to the East Australian Current. EAC?
Crush: [laughing] Oh, dude. You’re ridin’ it, dude! Check it out!
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Where do you make “life” more serious than it needs to be? Paying bills / mortgage/ trying to make a difference in the world – how can you remind yourself to make it FUN and bring play into it? Looking forward to hearing your ideas!
These Are a Few of My Favourite Things ♬ ♬
- Picture sourced from iranian.com
To count my blessings, focus on what I want to create & list what makes me happy, I decided to get em together in one sweet place. Why alphabetically? Oh, just cos I can 
I’ll be back to add more as I think of them (bonus: will keep me focused on what I like for the next few days, yay!)
Go ahead and share yours too (alpabetically or however you want) so I can steal some of them. Hehe.. Let the favourites games begin.
- A’s about Awareness, adaptability, authenticity, almond butter, adventures
- B brings me BFFs, babies – their laughs and cuddle factor, bubble baths, blip.fm, blogging, board games
- C creates Community, creativity, coaching, cafe catch ups with friends, chocolate, colours, campfires. Also, courage, contentment and conscious creation.
- D .d.d.d Dancing! Dates with my man, DVD nights with my gfs
- ENERGY!! EQ, Epiphanies (they ROCK!)
- F starts with Fun, festivals, fall (crisp fall air!), family, facing my fears (ok, I don’t love this but I love how I feel after!), feelings, financial freedom, FREEDOM of choice
- Gelato (nutella gelatos!), glitter
- Hula hooping, happiness, huggling (a mix of hugging and cuddling), humour
- I = Inspiration, Intentions, inner peace, instant connections – the kind where you meet someone and feel like you`ve been friends forever
- Jewel (the word – I love the word Jewel!)
- Kick ass people – too many to name, karmafication
- Law of attraction, leverage, love, living, life, laughing till I snort or my sides ache (whatever comes first), Leonard Cohen
- Making up words, music, movies
- Nutella (you KNEW this was gonna be first, didn’t you!), New Zealand
- Oreosssss
- Photographs – taking and looking at, personal growth, play-fullness
- Q: Quad biking
- Responding, not reacting. Reading inspirational stuff, randomness (being random), road trips
- Scrubs (yes, the TV show), sparkly stuff, snow globes, singing out loud in the shower and around my house (also in cars), social media!
- Travel, twitter, taking risks, trampolines (jump, jump, jump!), Tribe (as in, “my people”)
- U. Yes, U 
. Unconventionality, uniqueness
- Visioning … also known as daydreaming, videos (esp high energy ones like these)
- Writing (that wasn’t obvious was it , white water rafting, world citizenship
- Xcalibur (don’t tell me to spell it with an E, shhh X was feeling lonely)
- Y? I already said – just cos! Yin n Yang, Yodanese
- Zen habits and Zillion (as in, can’t believe the zillion things I came up with)
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This wasn’t easy. It WAS real fun though Who’s next?
A Confession – Why I REALLY Took a Time Out..
Filed under: Conscious Creation, Forgiveness, Inspired Action, Passion, courage
(I finished writing this post at 3am. Then, from 4am-5:30am, I rewrote it entirely. Here’s the unvarnished version cos you deserve the truth, not some hackneyed post glossing over the REAL stuff)
So ya’ll know how I decided Tuesday evening to take a 2 day “Time-Out” from the Internet, phone, people, work, action, plans, ideas, commitments etc?
When I said “If you listen closely to your intuition and all the signs around you, you will learn to trust (as I am), that this can only be good“?
I said I wanted to practice self care and spend time doing whatever appealed to me in the moment, something I thought would be a cinch seeing as I’m so good at doing what feels good. Well, that was 80% true.
Uh… the other 20%?
I lied.
By omission.
You see, I left out the reason why I wanted to do it.
The real truth is that I took that time out because I was getting carried away with seeking validation from external factors and it was starting to wear me out. There, I said it.
Can you say OBSESSION?
(And no, I’m not channeling Calvin Klein)
I’m talking about the insidious little devil called comparison. It’s bad enough to compare myself with others way ahead of me in terms of years and experience, but to constantly compare myself with myself too?
This ship was getting harder to steer and I was losing my peace of mind (pieces too).
*Deep Breath*
(Btw, It’s already feeling good to fess up, although I was jittery at the start – make that Day 31 of 100 days!)
My obsession with “social proof”, blog stats, twitter followers, facebook fans, alexa & google page ranks, creating a powerful and engaged community, numerics and other non-blog related life desires that I dated with “must have & do” by such and such time, was getting out of hand.
Those of you who blog know what I’m talking about, right? We can get so addicted to external manifestations of success that we lose sight of why we’re doing something. Sometimes, if #’s didn’t show an increase from the previous week or month, I’d feel like I wasn’t “doing enough”. And think of ways I could do better and be more authentic (recurring theme in my life).
The Irony!
Trying to be more authentic = one simply can’t be authentic. Because, as my favourite Yoda-ism goes: Do or Do Not, There Is No TRY. You are either authentic or you’re not. Period.
Ouch. I guess once you start being authentic, it doesn’t mean you will automatically carry on being. It requires constant awareness and “work”. Could that be cos authenticity requires vulnerability?
And being vulnerable is scary for the best of us?
I’d wager a yes.
When this blog went from 20 million to 510,000 within 3 months of me launching it, I was OVER the moon! Then I went travelling in July and it’s since dropped to about 1.3 million.
I hated going from nothing to something and sliding back to a little less something again (wow, get a LOAD of me – I hated it, really!? Hate?! Do I smell a little .. attachment here
We tend to overlook the progress we’ve made when we look at how far we still have to go.
I still want all that I do – to be the best in my field, super successful, happy, write great posts, work with amazing people, make a difference, get married, travel, grow roses, live my dream life..
Except now, I have more patience and compassion for myself. Like most of us, I’m the hardest on myself. Keeping up to my standards is exhausting.
Which brings us back to Tuesday. When I decided I had to make a stand for myself, against myself, to remind me of what’s really important. I.e.,
The passion and love I have for writing, self improvement, personal growth, coaching, having fun, connecting with people and living an inspired life.
(Which is why I started blogging in the first place. To share my experiences, inspire people AND learn from them. And attract a community of like minded peeps. And make great friends.. And..and..ok, ok)
Even during those 2 days, at 1st I tried to be ultra-productive as in: “I’d-better-do-some-good-introspective-work, figure-out-where-I-need-to-grow-and-learn-and-do-it, so-I-have-something-to-show for-this. So-that-when-I’ve-sorted-it-out, everything-will-just-come-to-me-easy-peasy-forever-n-ever”
(Oh my, I just can’t help laughing here! Even when I’m introspecting, I’m doing a number on myself!! That’s hilarious, right!!? Giggle! Snort! LOL!)
Day 1 was a bit of back and forth between wanting to be productive and just goofing off, till I took myself for a walk in the rain and ended up with fear-day #30.
Day 2 was a real laid back, watching movies and reading Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” kinda gig. That’s when it started to get good, real good.
So good that I’m going to share it with you. The edumacation I got when I decided to just be open to whatever showed up! Handpicked are Tolle’s simple and profound teachings that seemed to leap off the pages I was on …
- The mind holds the unconscious belief that its resistance, (which you experience as negativity or unhappiness in some form), will somehow dissolve the undesirable condition.
- But resistance leads to more of the same.
- The way to attain peace? Don’t look for it. Nothing you seek is outside of you. Don’t look for any other state than the one you are in now.
- When you completely accept the lack of what you seek, it gets transmuted into what you seek (this one really spoke to me – I reckon it’s where my intuition was leading me – ya THINK!?)
- The outer situation of your life is like a lake’s surface – calm, windy, rough according to seasons. Deep down, the lake is always undisturbed.
Because the truth is, I’m further along on my path than I’d ever imagined, I’m rocking this joint called life, I’m truly happy and successful, have an awesome community of friends and readers, love what I do, know some of the most amazing people ever, sparkle with good vibe energy, have big plans and live a good, simple life.
As Stuart Smalley says: I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and, doggonit, people like me! *wink*
Time-Out gave me a chance to embrace my blessings, an opportunity to practice extreme self care, insights into my patterns, face my ego-based fears, become aware of the attachment to externals, and taught me to not equate performance with popularity.
It also gave me lots of chocolate cake. Yes sirree, life is GOOD. Now where shall I send the comparison monster..
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If you actually read all the way through, send me your deets and I’ll send you over some Nutella! Boy I had a lot to say thanks for reading I won’t ask you any questions this time, feel free to share whatever pops up. Maybe let intuition guide you. I love you!
1..2..3…Time Out!
Spoiler Alert!
Have you seen Penelope?
It’s the story of a blue blooded girl who is born cursed – with the nose of a pig.
The only way to get rid of that curse is to find true love with “one of her own kind”. Which the family takes to mean a young man from the same strata of society.
Many suitors come and go as they realise no amount of money is worth marrying such an ugly, pig faced girl.
Poor little thing.
(She so desperately wants to be normal.)
Then one day, she runs away from home. Has a few adventures and comes back home to get married to a guy who wants that money. And soon comes to a Very Important Conclusion, one that changes her life and everything as she knows it.
Right after she runs away from her almost- wedding saying “I like myself the way I am,” when she stops trying to get rid of the curse (what you resist persists!) and declares that she loves herself pig snout and all (acknowledges her reality), something happens.
Her pig snout is magically replaced with a cute little nose.
A Miracle! How could this be! Penelope realises after all these years, that she had the power to change herself all along. She just had to love herself first ..
She didn’t know that though. Didn’t believe in herself. How could she, when no one else did? (well she could, but that’s a different story!)
Years spent waiting for her true love to come and rescue her, when all she needed was to love and rescue herself.
How many of us are like her, I wonder? Waiting for someone else (our partner, parents, kids, boss, friends) to make us happy, make it all better or make it all go away?
Truly, self love is the biggest love of all. I don’t mean that in a selfish, look out for yourself all the time kinda way, I mean it in the ”Love yourself so you can love others and let them love you” kinda way. Then again, I have a feeling you know exactly what I mean.
Fyi, A vital component of self love is knowing when to take time out. Consistently.
You are NOT selfish for cancelling all your appointments, backing out of commitments, taking yourself away for a day or two, saying NO or for wanting to take care of yourself in the best way for you.
Remember, we change what’s on the outside by changing what’s on the inside. And for that, sometimes, we all need a little time out.
It’s scary no doubt. With all the people who depend on you – who might think you are being irresponsible or selfish if you put yourself ahead of their needs. Ask yourself, don’t you deserve it too?
Well, I do. And I am.
At midnight tonight, I am turning off my computer and going offline till Friday. I may even stretch it to the weekend but 2 days is the minimum I am giving to myself.
Well Tia, you probably don’t have much going on then, you say?
Au contraire, this month has been the busiest, biggest, craziest month I have had in terms of commitments, new projects, writing, various challenges, assignments and what have you.
So much so that I am nervous about being out of touch on email, twitter, facebook, with clients, and the gazillion things I have to do!
But I know this one thing for sure – focusing on externals when the internal hasn’t caught up paves the path for overwhelment, failure to launch and giving up.
If you listen closely to your intuition and all the signs around you, you will learn to trust (as I am), that this can only be good. To share your gifts with the world, you first need to share them with yourself.
So while I honour myself with extreme self care and love, connect with nature and myself, walk, read, journal and surprise myself for the next 2 days, I invite you to do something for yourself too.
Today, do one thing purely for YOU.
You are the most important person in your and your people`s lives and to be your best, you simply must treat yourself as someone worthy and precious of that.
Go buy your favourite magazine, sip a latte with a friend, go for a drive, buy yourself flowers, grab a beer, take a nap.
Me, I’m outta here like a fat kid on cake, like a bear on honey, like a dress on prom night. Until the weekend, adios and much love to you guys and gals!
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Ps: What are some of YOUR favourite ways of looking after yourself and taking Time Out? Please share them with us so we can all learn from each other, thanks in advance and see you on the flip side. Really looking forward to reading your comments when I get back
It’s Now Or Never, Don’t Waste Another Minute!
Filed under: Conscious Creation, Fun, Law of Attraction, Life, Passion, courage, happiness
♫♫ It’s now or never,
come hold me tight
Kiss me my darling,
be mine tonight ♫♫
♫♫ Tomorrow will be too late,
it’s now or never
My love won’t wait ♫♫
Are you one of those people who believe that beauty, abundance, opportunities and luck are all around us and would so know them if you were eyeball to eyeball with them?
Or have you been trained to expect it at certain times, hence losing out on opportunities to see them, even when in your face?
I reckon I’m a bit of both. Or at the very least, I used to be the 2nd, not noticing or appreciating the incredible amount of love, abundance and blessings in my life. And there were plenty!
But that was before I learned to look for and focus on what was right (huge shift from looking for what was wrong!). And before I learned about the Law of Attraction, conscious creation and how we create our own reality.
Before coach training taught me that curiosity and openness were assets, not liabilities (I know, right?! I can’t imagine telling someone to be closed up and uninterested in others, yet I’ve been told to do that to “protect” myself from hurt and disappointment. Ha! ha! Sweet, well meaning people .
In the past, I was always looking for the big, obvious scenarios. Defining success by those standards. You know, the ones I talked about here.
And now, I know better.
I know what we can’t really schedule fun, recreation and play for a limited period of time. Linear demarcations between a time to work hard and a time to play? Yes, that’s what they all say but me, I say balderdash! Let’s not compartmentalise our lives anymore, k’.
Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too? That’s what cakes are FOR dontcha think? I swear, if I ever come across the person who made THAT one up… ooooh!
You and I, we’re part of the growing breed of people living consciously, realising that we’d rather not wait till we’re retired at 60 to start having fun. Breaking out of that old way of thinking, and creatively bringing in ways to enjoy our NOWS. The whole dance like no one’s watching, love like…
(ps: have I ever mentioned how glad I am that you’re with me in this? Consider it said and thank you!)
Reminds me of the Joshua Bell experiment. People pay bunches of $$ to watch him in concert and rave about him because they expect to be blown away by his talent.
Yet when he played at a subway station for 45 minutes, no one appreciated it or recognised him (except for a smart 3 year old who kept wanting to run to him. Sensing a theme here from my last post… 3 year olds are the epitome of BEING! Time to let your inner 3 year old call the shots maybe?)
Apparently he was “in the wrong place at the wrong time” (from one of bystanders) cos the subway station is about people running through like drones with one and one intent only – to make it to their destination without any distractions on the way.
People, people! HOW many times have you heard “it’s about the journey, not the destination”?!
Well of course you’re journeying to GET there but when you enjoy the steps it takes you to reach that happy place, you get there faster.
Because you don’t focus on the time it took to get there but the time of your life you had GETTING there – and time sure flies when you have fun!
I couldn’t finish without sharing the option I LOVE (and shared on my facebook fan page which, btw, you can join here!) The message?
Make it FUN!!
Every minute of every day is an opportunity to enjoy life. Create as many of those moments as you can daily, rather than waiting for the weekend or your annual holiday to let loose.
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What’s something you can do to bring more of this essence into your life? How did you change the way you look at life and what does that life look like now? What advice would you give someone who is scared they may seem irresponsible if they started having more fun? I know you’ve got the words, so share them people. Much love xo
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