Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Vlad Dolezal from Fun Life Development.
Think back to when you were a child, building a LEGO house. (Or using a similar building set.)
You would set off to build a house… then halfway through decide to make it a horse ranch instead… then get distracted by another idea and end up with a space ship with a pack of horses on one wing and a swimming pool on the other.
That’s how personal development feels when you approach it in a fun way. You have a certain intention, but then you get distracted by something interesting, experiment with a few different tidbits, and end up with something completely different than you intended. Yet the result is even more awesome than your original plan, and you had great fun along the way!
Still, some people insist on approaching personal development like building a lego house according to set-in-stone instructions. They stress about getting every brick in the right place, then get annoyed when they don’t progress fast enough, then start procrastinating because the process is boring and doesn’t challenge their mind and then they end up dropping the project and complaining that building lego houses doesn’t work.
Personal development can be just as fun as building a lego house, if you approach it the right way.
If you think personal development should be hard, it will be
There’s a funny thing called selective perception. Put simply, you only notice things you are looking for.
So if you’re looking for hard complicated ways to improve yourself, when you find an easy solution, you drop it because “that can’t possibly be right”. Then you come up with the most weird and convoluted ways to make your self-improvement difficult, because that’s what you’re looking for.
Here’s the thing. Personal development done right is easy. It’s effortless. It’s fun!
Building your own character is just like building a character in a computer game, or like building a lego spaceship:
- you tack on a bunch of random stuff because you feel like it
- you keep experimenting and see what you like the best
- the process is just as much fun as the result
- there isn’t a final outcome – it’s an endless fun process, where you keep changing and tweaking things because you feel like it. The fun of a building set comes from building things, and the same is true with personal development.
I have tried all sorts of habit changes myself, like waking up early, meditating, being vegetarian, keeping a daily to-do list, or consciously changing my body language (that one was especially fun).
Some of them have stuck and some haven’t. But every single one of them was fun to try! (Yes, even waking up early).
How to make personal development fun
Here are a few ways to make personal development fun:
- Forget about the outcome
- Think of it as a fun experiment to see what happens
- When you read/hear about cool ideas, TRY THEM
- Do it with a friend (either offline or online)
- Tell other people about your experiments (that’s one reason starting a blog is great)
Aaaand… yeah. If I ended right here, you would most likely go off nodding, thinking you learned something interesting but leaving your behavior unchanged.
I’m not a big fan of list posts for exactly that reason. That’s why I let this list occupy such a small part of this post.
Instead, I will give you one thorough example, to help you drive the concept deep into your subconscious. This will stimulate your subconscious mind’s creativity and get it thinking of how to make other personal development ideas fun.
An example of making personal development fun
You can approach any part of personal development as a game. I’m going to take open-mindedness as an example here:
…
Think of lying on a grass meadow on a warm summer day, with a friend, watching the clouds above.
“That one looks like a car,” you say pointing at a cloud.
“It looks like a dog to me…” your friend replies.
What is your reply? Do you jump up angrily and shout “NO, it’s definitely a car! You’re completely wrong!” and storm off?
Or do you say “Wait… hang on… oh yea! I can see what you mean. I’d actually say it’s a bit more of a tiger, but I can definitely see where you’re coming from with the dog.”
And then you can have more fun guessing all the other interpretations for that cloud. Maybe it can also be a motorcycle, or a pretzel…
And considering other people’s point of view is just like that. For a moment, you suspend all judgment, and see the world as they see it. And then you think of all other interpretations of the same situation, just to see what fun things you can come up with.
You can even find a friend who’s also interested in practicing open-mindedness and challenge each other with issues and ideas to be open-minded about.
One more thing. Notice how I never once mentioned how will open-mindedness be useful to you? That’s because focusing on the outcome will make it seem like a chore. Consider the outcome when choosing what habits to try, but once you get started, forget the outcome, and enjoy it like a game.
Personal development is fun. All you have to do is approach it in the right way.
…
Now stay with me, this is important. You might be tempted to skip the last few paragraphs.
Maybe you’re thinking of commenting, or retweeting this post.
Don’t. Not yet. Before you do anything else, I want you to use the information here.
Because while comments and retweets are nice, they’re not the real thing. The real thing is helping you improve your life.
So in a moment, when I say the word “now”, I want you to stop reading and start thinking. Think about your personal development, and how you could make it more fun. Then think of some specific actions you can take in the next 24 hours to make it more fun.
When you’re done, then you can go do something else. And if you come up with an interesting way of making personal development fun, please share it in the comments! 🙂
Okay, ready? Three, two, one…
This blog post ends now.
What a beautiful post! I love everything you’ve shared here. And I am definitely looking for ways to make the self-improvement process more fun and childlike. In fact, one of my big “goals” this year was to regain that sense of childhood wonder and inhibition. This post fits perfectly in line with that. Thank you so much!
@Casey:
Ah, spot on! “Childlike” is exactly the word I would use to sum up my whole approach 🙂
Hey Vlad,
What! Fun? You mean not stressed out? You mean that I can get the results I want without suffering? 😉
I think forgetting about outcome is key. I like to write down my outcomes and where I’m going – but then when I am in the moment and working towards the goal, that in and of itself, that experience is enough. Just enjoy what I’m doing – and don’t be so concerned about where I’m going, I can always review that later.
I also love how you have a separate page for us coming here from PF to your blog. Awesome little page!
As you know, Sid, I’m also a big fan of enjoying the process itself :). There usually isn’t much point in achieving lots of things if you hate the process.
If anyone likes my article enough to click through to my blog, I like to make them feel cozy and welcome. They deserve it after the long treacherous journey through the cyberspace. 😉
So, just abandon each goal as a new one comes along?
Nice post, but yogis have known this for thousands and thousands of years.
This wisdom is as old as hills and mountains in the Himalayas.
Approach your work in a spirit of play and change your perception.
Change your perception and approach work in a spirit of play.
Ancient wisdom, ancient lore.
“To see the world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.”
Ah, William Blake reminds us of what we seem to have lost in this mad scramble to get ahead and defeat the competition.
Life is a play and you are the dancer in it.
Dance with ideas and feel the inner bliss.
Cheers! Keep on writing and contributing.
Glad to read your work on Charlie’s blog.
Hey, I really liked this post. But free hugs? Really?
Anyway, thanks for this, I liked the lego analogy. This is the approach I try to take when I do yoga.
Archan Mehta, maybe some yogis have known this for centuries, but most yoga people I read take the whole thing way, way seriously. So I guess they (and all of us) could do with a reminder like this. 🙂
Yes! Free hugs! 😀
And you’re absolutely right about yoga. I used to find it pretty annoying and uncomfortable until I realized that’s not a good way to approach it. So I started having fun with it, only doing it while I enjoyed it. Since then, I have managed to get hang of the head-stand, among other things.
I’ve lived with the maxim, “trust my interests.” Although I’ve questioned myself at times (“Why am I doing this, when I have other stuff to do?” (Answer: because it was fun.) ) It’s worked out much better than I expected.
For example, the esoteric study of appreciative inquiry led to a fascination with social constructionism — and now I have a different way of experiencing the world.
I have no idea what you said in the second paragraph, but I’ll just nod and smile and pretend I understand it 😉
Vlad,
I’ve noticed that it’s only when we start having fun with personal development that it actually starts to work. When we get really caught up in the outcome then a whole world of stress comes into our life. For me, there’s big connections between surfing and personal development. If go into the water with the attitude of “I have to catch waves and surf at a certain level” then I’m done before I even start. I might as well have just stayed home. But, if I go there with, I’m happy to get water time, then I pretty much go out and surf at the peak of my abilities.
Yeah, that’s one thing I discovered recently (actually mostly after writing the post above).
It’s not just the fun. It’s the letting go of the outcome that paves the way for your naturally fun and curious mind to reign free. Sort of like cleaning a cup properly before pouring crystal clear water in it. If that makes any sense.
I really love the idea of personal development being a FUN thing rather than a drag. Thanks for this post. 🙂
Ahh… what can I add to what has already been said & I conquer! Good job keeping our attention until the very end. Am glad you reminded me of my childhood -laying on the grass staring at the clouds and trying to come up with different shapes. There is no right or wrong way to approach personal development. Open mindedness is key and having the spirit of a child makes it more fun:-) Cheers!
Pauline.
Hmmm, you just made me realize I haven’t done the cloud-staring in a while either. I blame the cold ground 🙂
Cloud-staring while you are in a cold weather is still an improvement in boosting and conquering your fear going out in a cold day..You never knew unless you try.
But, but, but… I thought personal development had to be hard work! All those years, sweating, hard working, the ongoing lashes, the self-abasement – all for nothing? Nobody told me it could be fun, too!
😉
-Peter
I agree, having fun is something that we all too easily forget. It seems that we are all rushing around trying to be the best we can be without actually taking a step back and enjoying ourselves.
Love this! This is why I enjoy reading Tim Ferriss–he is constantly experimenting with new processes and making personal development fun. For myself, I am constantly looking for ways to make my daily practice of writing fiction more fun. It can be tough with no deadlines. Some things that have worked are writing exercises (sometimes with random word generators, sometimes more structured) and setting a 15-minute timer and seeing how many words I can write.