If you had to give the amount of joy, fun and genuine belly laughter in your life a number, what would it be? Is that as high as you want it to be? Probably not. I’ve been there, and since then, I’ve learnt how to have fun in life.
Good news is, you have come to the right place. I have been working on infusing my life with fun, and it makes life so much better. When you have fun in general, the heavier things in life don’t feel so heavy anymore and our brains are better able to process everything happening around us. Basically, having joy makes your whole life better!
After reading these awesome tips on how to have fun in your life, you’ll walk away feeling lighter with tons of knowledge on how to have fun, and ready to have sore abs from laughter.
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Add a soundtrack
Everything is more fun with a good soundtrack. Think of the best movie moments, then delete the background music and reconsider. Probably not as good, right?
Music is one of the joys of life, and it is such an easy way to have fun, so it’s a great first step how to have fun.
Listen to music on your way to work, and your boring commute becomes a 30 minute karaoke session. Listen to music while you’re cooking, when you’re on a walk or when you’re cleaning the house. Listen to music when you wake up, or change your alarm clock to a song that motivates you to start your day in a good mood.
Music adds so much joy to our lives but we barely recognize it. So take some time to make a playlist full of songs that make you feel good, make you feel happy and make you want to move your body.
Wake up your inner kid
Do you remember how you had way fun when you were a kid? I’m willing to bet that you think back on that time and remember the laughter, the joy you felt and sometimes you long to get back to those days.
But who says you can’t?
There are 2 easy ways to have fun as if you were a kid.
Do what you couldn’t do
As a kid, you were often told no. You can’t do this, you can’t do that, you’re not allowed to etc. But now that you’re an adult, there is no one to tell you no. So think of the things you weren’t allowed to do as a kid and still want to do, then do them!
I remember when I first moved out, I did small things like eating dessert before dinner, or sometimes eating dessert as dinner. The day I finished my college exams, I took off for Disneyland Paris, simply because I wanted to.
So play hookie for a day and go to a theme park. Get yourself an icecream on a hot summer’s day. Get the hot chocolate with the whipped cream, eat dessert before dinner, get messy when you cook and eat the cookie batter before you pop it into the oven. If you think it’ll help you have fun, do it!
Do now what you loved then
When we were kids, we often spent our time doing things we loved to do. We used to do anything to have fun, right? It could be playing outside, reading books, painting, building legos, really anything. But maybe somewhere in the years between then and now you’ve forgotten about that. You’ve stopped doing it, and you didn’t even realize.
Pick that back up! If you loved it when you were a kid, chances are you still love it, and there’s no excuse not to do it. My dad is 60 and he just bought himself a new lego trailer to build, and it is his favorite thing to do on Sundays.
So try to remember the things you loved to do when you were a kid. Call your parents if you have no clue, and see if you can pick that back up. Often, it’s easier than you think.
Do more things you actually want to do
Under the same umbrella: do more things you actually want to do! When you wake up in the morning, what do you feel like doing? The easiest way to start on how to have fun in life is to start doing the things you really want to do.
Sit down, and write a list of things that make you genuinely happy. Things that bring joy. Things that excite you, things you love doing. Now make sure that at least once a week you do one of those things.
Make more time for the things you want to be doing, and the joy will follow.
Schedule them in
Now this may seem controversial because most of these tips are about being carefree. Scheduling doesn’t really sound carefree, right?
But the truth is, that these activities often get buried beneath all the ‘have to’s’. And so an important step when working on how to have more fun, is to schedule them and perceive them as a ‘have to’ in your calendar. Block an hour every week to act like a child, to dance like nobody’s watching or to create a new masterpiece.
I know this isn’t always easy. You feel like you already have so many obligations, so many people are expecting things from you and you can’t find any time at all to do something for yourself.
I’m telling you now, you can. You have permission to say no to someone else in order to take care of your own happiness. Say no to something you really didn’t want to do anyway, and use the time you save to do something fun for yourself.
If you have to, get up 15 minutes earlier. Pretend you’re taking a bath and read a book in the bathroom a bit more often. Whatever you have to do, find time for joy.
Let go of ‘should’
If I never hear the word ‘should’ again, I will be extremely happy. Should is probably one of the most damaging words to our mental health as it automatically invokes these feelings of guilt and responsibility. Now does that sound like fun? I don’t think so.
I am actively training myself to stop saying ‘should’ and replacing it by words like ‘can’, ‘choose to’ and ‘get to’.
Aside from that, ask yourself: Why should I? Who thinks I should? Do I think I should? Or is it because someone else told me I should?
Dive into these questions and realize that at least half the things you think you ‘should’ do, you can stop doing without real consequences.
Get creative
One of the best ways to have fun is to be more creative. Break out the paint brushes, the coloring books or get yourself a resin set. Creativity is a part of our brain and a side of ourselves that too often gets neglected or even ignored when we get older, but it makes everything more fun.
It doesn’t have to be anything big, nothing special, just create something and notice how you feel when you’re finished. If you’re unsure about all of them, look into taking a class!
Do everything like nobody’s watching
But really. I am 100% sure you’re holding back at something because of what others might think. But this isn’t really about what others might think, it’s about what you secretly think of yourself. ‘But they will think I look like an idiot’. It’s not about them, this is about you thinking you’ll look like an idiot if you do it.
But what if you embrace who you are and what you love, and start doing everything without a care for other people’s opinions? Doesn’t that sound like a lot more fun?
I never loved parties, and always thought people who danced at those parties looked ridiculous. Until one day I realized that the people dancing seemed to have a lot more fun than the people who were judging them. The next party I went to I danced for 4 hours without caring how I looked, and had the best time.
So let go of the judgment of yourself and others, and just have fun with it.
Accept that you’re a beginner
As an adult, we’re not used to being beginners anymore. Sometimes it seems like we have forgotten how to have fun. We approach everything very seriously because we want to be good at them, and we often don’t like them if we’re not.
But what if you accept that you’re a beginner? Start accepting that you will mess up, you will make a mess, you will fall, and that is okay.
Stop holding yourself back from doing things that will bring you joy simply because you might fall or you might fail at it the first time. Laugh at yourself when you do, and try again.
I’m sure you’ve seen this being compared to a child learning how to walk. They laugh when they fall, and they get back up. But not for one minute do they seem to think; ah well, maybe this walking thing isn’t for me. So accept you’re a beginner, stop taking it so seriously and do it.
Conclusion
Are you feeling ready to see how to have fun? To laugh and to have sore abs and cheeks tomorrow? These tips are some ideas you can try to have fun in your life, but to be honest they all come down to 1 thing: stop taking everything so seriously.
Somehow we think being an adult means we have to be serious all the time, and we act like it’s all life or death. And it really isn’t.
So take some of these tips, go have fun, and start living your life to the fullest. If you want to know more about how to have fun, you can read any of these other posts I have written on being a happier person who actually has fun every day.
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