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How To Have More Fun In Your Business

Do you actually have any fun in your business?

Hustle culture has been glorified for too long.

The idea that if you’re not working all hours, if you’re actually seeing your family and loved ones, getting some sleep, eating well and taking time out...then you’re clearly not doing it right and don’t want success enough!

We need to call time on this and bring it into our conscious thought how actually ridiculous this is rather than buying into the narrative.

AND bring a little fun back into business if you feel like it’s a little lacking!

We’ve forgotten to enjoy the journey!

We need to trigger our brain’s pleasure centre a little more. Get the dopamine and endorphins running around a little more!

Increase creativity and motivation. This is more important than we think!

Burnout is not sexy.

Stress is not sexy.

Getting ill is not sexy.

Being able to run a business YOUR way, around YOUR life is sexy.

Being clear on your boundaries and non negotiables is sexy!

Being able to actually DO the things that bring you joy is sexy!

Most people don’t actually know what that looks like.

The hustle has been normalised and celebrated and glorified to the point that we don’t consciously question it anymore.

This is something that comes up with ALL of my clients at the beginning.

We have to pick apart what’s been created, or what they’re trying to create and get back to basics of what do you actually WANT and how can we fit or tweak their goals around what’s most important to them.

The whole point the majority of us start businesses is to actually GAIN something back in our lives.

Freedom.

Spending time with your sproglets.

Some sort of work/life balance.

Doing more of what we love.

So when did that go out the window?

When did we decide having a business wasn’t meant to be fun?

So let’s have a think about how we can inject a little bit of life, a little bit more FUN into your business...you’re allowed!

Grab your journals!

Firstly, what do you want MORE of in your life in terms of fun?

Get clear on what that looks like.

Secondly, what do you actually really love and find fun about business?

Get clear on that!

What did you want MORE of in your life when you started your business?

How do you think you can incorporate even little things into your business that make it more fun and enjoyable?

For me a lot of it comes into my daily routine.

I start the day with The Class by Taryn Toomey.

Now, it’s no secret I used to struggle with actually enjoying exercise but i’ve found my jam now. I love jumping around and dancing, even though the squats and burpees nearly kill me, the fact it’s intertwined with something that I find really fun is a game changer.

The freestyle, the hopping the star jumps...I actually find myself smiling.

There’s also a great nostalgia for me for some of the movements...which I suspect is not a mistake! It’s amazing, check it out.

I also have a playlist that I dance around the kitchen or in my office too. Songs that bring me joy and just make me want to move.

Not only is it fun but ‘i'm getting the endorphins running round my body, it can break me out of a funk by shifting my state. It helps process and move emotions. It’s a no brainer really!

Singing is also one of my FAVOURITE things to do so I always incorporate that into my day.

The great thing with these so far is they really do double up as emotional regulation techniques which will also give the benefit of training a new baseline for joy and pleasure into my nervous system!

If you’re constantly feeling stressed or anxious, in all honesty you need to make time for these sorts of things.

The brain benefits you get from movement, fun, creativity, novelty, play are HUGE too so for me, this has become part of my non negotiables.

I won’t master it every day because I’m human, but it doesn’t stop me making the effort and being conscious of what the signals are telling me when I feel ‘off’ or resistant to these things.

Relationships can be a huge part of bringing more joy and fun into your business.

Relationships with peers, clients, friends.

I’ve had pajama parties with clients in different timezones.

I make it a priority to talk to my business friends and lift them up as they do me.

I have friends I talk silly nonsense to on Instagram that breaks up my day.

I have a lot of fun in my stories on Instagram. Stories are one of my favourite things. Partly because i’m nosey but also because i’ve curated my instagram to be a happy place so I see things that I know more often than not are going to be good for me. (I’m also conscious of being disciplined around my time there ha!)

I absolutely don’t take myself too seriously, even though I need to talk about serious subjects. I mean...the name of my podcast is The Positive Pants Podcast! I talk about overcoming self sabotage and how trauma affects how you show up in your business, how experiences you may have had as a child have given you deep routed protection mechanisms that get in your way.

I talk about some heavy things, some deep things, some triggering things but I always do it with a sense of humour and genuine caring for the people who choose to listen. Hopefully I make the heavy stuff feel a little lighter.

So it’s a combination. It’s being able to mix the fun with the serious.

Think about what are the things you really enjoy doing in your business?

It’s time to think outside the box.

For example, if you love collaborations and conversations with friends, how could you bring that into your business?

Launch a podcast together? A live series? Launch a programme together?

I have a HUGELY exciting collaboration coming up in the second half of the year with two other incredible entrepreneurs and actually a conversation we had is what sparked me to create this episode.

We were talking about how we can bring more fun into business in general. The fact we can be on a call for 5 hours together and feel seen, heard, laugh, put the world to rights and get passionate about what we’re creating and what we’re going to be giving to people all in one go!

That’s fun for me.

I have another business owner friend, who was actually a friend when we were both working in the media industry and have come ‘back together’ in the last year, and it’s a similar thing.

We know we’re going to launch something together...we don’t know what it is yet and that’s ok...but it’s going to happen. It’s all about letting these things percolate and marinate until they feel right! You’ll know in your gut when that is.

But we support each other, we can be silly together, we can moan and reframe in the same sentence together and laugh about our foibles.

When we’re out of this covid situation we’ll meet up in London for mini mastermind days...with food and wine. Fun! Doesn’t mean we won’t be doing serious businessy stuff and talking about issues and obstacles!

I’m so grateful that I have that. But for me, it’s a huge part of what makes my business so enjoyable and fun.

So what would be fun for you?

Connection is essential, you need to find your group of ride or dies who have your back and you can send weird GIFs or MEMEs to them and they just get you.

You need that in business.

Making sure you make time for the things you enjoy outside of your business and making sure your business fits around that, rather than taking it away. What is that for you?

How do you celebrate your wins? A big part of the work that I do with clients is around this because we just don’t do it enough.

We bypass the positives and focus on the negatives. But the reality is when we take the time to celebrate our wins it motivates us.

It allows us to embed those feelings of being proud of what we’ve achieved into our nervous system helping us create that as a baseline and make it normal. It grows our self worth.

So these small little things are NOT to be ignored.

When I get a new client my hubs and I will still crack out a bottle of wine and have a takeaway or I will buy something that I see all the time that is a reminder of the work I do, celebrating that clients growth, celebrating the trust they have in me and celebrating my hard work too.

I do the same thing for milestones. My first 1000 podcast listens I bought myself an Alex Monroe necklace. Even though I can sometimes get 1000 downloads in a day now it reminds me to not take that for granted.

To not forget that where I am now, I used to dream about getting to one day.

That’s fun for me.

Talking about injecting more fun into your business also means we need to look at what to take out.

Outsourcing time!

What tasks bring you the opposite of fun. What sucks your soul but is a necessary part of the job? Give it to someone else who DOES get joy out there...they exist!

Just start to think about these things. How could you make launching fun. What could you do that will make you laugh and you can involve others? What do you want to do more of?

Don’t judge what you find fun in comparison to other people because the bottom line is, it’s nothing to do with them.

When you have more fun in your business you will quickly find how much easier everything becomes. How much more enjoyable. How much more motivating.

You get to decide how you do things but just remember, we didn’t get into this to give ourselves more shackles and stress than working for someone else.

It’s time to take having fun more seriously. ;-)

Fx

How To Have More Fun In Your Business 16:16 Share

The Positive Pants Podcast

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How To Have More Fun In Your Business