Tag: change

Who said we can’t have fun?

Posted on by philipdodson

Listening to Slim Shady while writing this today. I love writing with my headphones on, it allows me to shut the rest of the world out and really get into the zone of writing.

I was sat on the sofa this morning with YouTube on the TV and my daughter was going through various music videos with Mrs D asking her for various requests. Anyway the subject of twerking came up, not sure why to be honest, so Mrs D decided she’d have a crack.

So we searched for the appropriate song and off she went. Well probably good for her that my phone was upstairs so there is no video evidence. Mrs D is actually a very good dancer and has a great rhythm (steady, this post might end up in the public domain).

However, she hadn’t got the concept of twerking and we were all in fits of laughter. It was one of those moments where you obviously had to be there to appreciate.

laughter

The thing is that life can end up being too serious and it is important to have as many of those moments as you possibly can. Maybe some of them are best for the confines of your home and family.

I observe at work or travelling or at events or in what you read, that people are too serious in life. They sit on trains and their faces are misery, not surprising if they are reading the Metro….’ebola’…’terror’…’artic freeze’….and worse of all ‘Farage’.

Sorry have to break off here, what the f… is Farage on?? This isn’t a political thing, as if you know me, you will know that I am not aligned to any of that old school party politics nonsense. In fact the recent stuff in the news that I’ve looked at on Facebook, has just confirmed my thoughts about the whole crap political system that runs most of the world.

Anyway, back on track. Seriousness, which is often associated with the word ‘professional’ is all too often present in everyone’s working life.

Now I am not suggesting that people go to work off their faces on laughing gas, so that they are just falling about the place with laughter, unable to do anything.

However, this obsession with this other old school notion of ‘professional’, which is so subjective anyway, makes work a misery for most. Why do we have to be serious all the time? Who came up with that idea? Where is the rule book that say’s life can’t be fun, that includes work?

The fact is, there is only the ‘rules’ that we as humans have written or created in our heads, that when we are working, we have to be serious.

Naturally, if you are in court and discussing a serious crime, then again it may not be appropriate to sit there and have a good laugh about it.

However, apart from the obvious, there are lot’s of situations where taking a more light hearted and good humoured view would be better for all.

After all, we all enjoy life a good deal more when we laugh and have some fun. In a working environment, a great amount of stress and anxiety could be reduced or removed, by laughter.

There is now laughter meditation, Google it, and that along with mediation is often ridiculed and ironically laughed at by the ‘serious’ and ‘professional’ people.

Maybe some will see this as all to radical and unprofessional, but really I do think there should be a lot more time in the working environment to bring in not just meditation, but laughter meditation and much more time for light heartedness.

After all who says you can’t make fun. In fact, I would bet my shirt, that if we all were allowed or allowed ourselves to have more fun in the workplace, that productivity would massively increase, absenteeism would fall and stress/illness would reduce rapidly.

So when you get back to work on Monday, try being a little less serious, try having more of laugh, see how you can make your tasks and that of others more fun. I am sure our customers would be happier if they dealt with fun people and if you service in general was more fun.

I am already laughing about some of the most serious business situations that could be turned on their heads by introducing a bit of fun.

Comfort zones

Posted on by philipdodson

The path of least resistance is where we often naturally gravitate to, especially, if we are not motivated in life. Honestly, writing our daily to do lists and we start off with heaps of enthusiasm of all the great things that we are going to achieve that day.

Then you start, often though, you will pick an easy task on the list, avoiding the one you deep down know that you should be doing, but it’s hard and often requires you to step out of our comfort zones.

Comfort zones are an interesting thing and it is often talked about by coaches and guru’s. ‘You got to get out of your comfort zone’. That implies that you need to step in to somewhere which is going to make you feel uncomfortable.

I’m not sure that is the best sales pitch that I’ve heard, to be honest, to get you to do something, especially something that you are already putting off, as you think it will be hard.

Imagine if DFS advertised ‘ditch your comfortable sofa and grab one of our range of uncomfortable couches’ or ‘feel the pain of our latest armchairs’. Not sure that would be a real winner of a campaign to be honest.

There is almost this ‘macho’ tag attached to doing things, you have to be ‘tough’ to run a business, you need ‘big balls’ and so on.

I think that this kind of thinking actually has a negative effect on doing stuff and often puts people off stepping out of their ‘comfort zones’.

I actually think that the ‘zone’ of doing the same old, same old and just floating along through life doing the familiar is actually mis-named to be honest.

As the reality is, most of the people in this supposed ‘comfort zone’, aren’t these happy contented people living a familiar and ‘comfy’ life of inertia. They are in fact living a life full of worries, anxiety, stress, fears, feelings of being trapped, inadequacy and in fact they are very uncomfortable.

The phrase should be free yourself from your discomfort zone and step into a new life.

Actually, this whole notion of ‘comfortable’ sounds fairly mediocre to be honest too. Who wants to be settling for comfort, we actually want to be happy.

So, perhaps it could be free yourself from your discomfort zone and create a life of happiness.

Now that sounds a better sales pitch to be honest.

Life for a good deal of people is that discomfort zone and it is because they fear that breaking free from their mis-named ‘comfort zone’, it is this giant leap, as you’ve ‘GOT TO GET OUT OF IT’. But by leaving what they have, that’s described as ‘comfort’ implies that they are going to somewhere less comfortable.

Negative and fear based messages are often how we ‘drive’ people to do things. This is wrong and it can easily be changed too.

We could encourage people to be more open, encourage people that it is OK to talk about how we really feel. We can start to make progress on getting people to see change as thing that will bring them a happier life.

Not to have to frighten them to go into this ‘discomfort zone’ to get them to change.