!Have you taken your ‘funprint’ lately?

When is the last time you really had FUN?

Think about it-the last time you just let yourself forget about all your responsibilities, let go and had a good time?

We all have a “funprint” and like your “thumbprint” it’s unique.

Research says that we are most productive, persistent, creative, and flexible when we’re engaged in precisely the combination of activities that brings us maximum FUN.

However, we get so caught up in the things we need and should do that we forget the importance of having FUN in our life. It seems ‘frivolous’ and ‘unproductive’. Yet, truly, having FUN in our life helps us to accomplish more.

You don’t need to go on a pricey vacation or buy a lot of stuff to have FUN. Sometimes it’s just having good conversations with people you enjoy.

There is always time to have FUN. Even if it’s just for fifteen minutes.

You’ve got one life to live.

Telling yourself, “I’ll have fun when…” is a real bummer.

Have fun now!

Life is too short to wait.

Reasons to Make Sure you Include Fun in your Life

• Having fun helps you to be more successful in everything you do!
• Having fun improves relationships.
• Research shows that couples who are happy know how to have fun together.
• Conflict resolution skills are improved when we’re having fun in life.
• Laughter and fun increases empathy, compassion, trust, and intimacy.
• Happiness is contagious-it spreads like a virus.
• If you’re happy, you increase the odds that your close friends and family will be happy too.
• Decades of research has shown that play releases endorphins–decreases our stress and increases our happiness
• Less stress, better health.
• Less stress can improve our memory and concentration.
• Laughter and fun can be some of the best medicine you take.
• Laughing and having fun helps you to be a more positive person.
• Laughing and engaging in a pleasurable physical activity helps balance your hormones which has an amazing impact on your mood and how you feel. (which has a ripple effect on everything in your life)

What makes you happy?
What do you love to do?

How can you create more play, fun
and laughter in your life?

Three Strategies to help find your “Fun-Print”

Strategy 1: Finding what makes you SMILE

Sit down with a notebook and list things you enjoy-anything from petting your cat to watching a good movie. Look for the ones that light you up and make you smile.

Then seriously commit to including these things in your life.

Strategy 2: Revisit your Childhood

Genetic research suggests that our fun preferences are largely inborn and remain consistent throughout life. The time when we’re free to act on them is usually childhood, so that’s a great place to look for your “funprint.”

List things you remember enjoying as a child. Pay particular attention to things that made you “lose time,” so that hours seemed to disappear in seconds. What absorbed you that completely? Telling stories? Climbing trees? Playing dress-up? Then try to incorporate some of that into your life.

Strategy 3: Real-time research.

Keep a “fun journal” on a calendar. Jot down a brief list of your daily activities and give each one a fun “score,” with zero meaning no fun and ten meaning fun-tabulous.

As the days go by, you’ll begin to see which activities and people yield the most fun-and you may be surprised. It might be really simple things like eating crackers and cheese in bed versus going out for a fancy meal.

Sometimes, fun doesn’t just happen to you.

You need to take action and find ways to make small and fresh changes to get you out of the same-o, same-o routine.

Don’t wait for someone else to take the lead. Be creative and start taking action to make your life more “FUN”……………

Here’s a few ideas…..

Be curious about people. Meet someone new or get to know someone better.

Read an adventure novel or thriller. Enjoy your excitement vicariously through a juicy, good book.

Watch a funny movie. Have some good laughs.

Write out your life vision. Spend some time thinking about your ideal life filled fun, excitement and adventure. Write down the actions you could take to get yourself there.

Learn something new. Join a group to learn a new skill or a hobby. You will open doors to meeting new people who share your interests and gain a sense of achievement.

Get out of the house. Step away from the TV or computer. Take a walk with a friend. Go to the bookstore and browse.

Go on a weekend excursion. Plan a fun getaway.

Test drive a new car. Go take a spin behind the wheel of your favorite car. (even if you can’t buy it right now)

Arrange a special evening. Surprise your beloved with a romantic evening.

Try an unusual recipe. Cook something that you’ve never tried before and invite someone over to share it.

Plan an adventure trip. Even if you can’t afford to take a trip now, just researching, planning, and dreaming can give you a boost and build excitement for the time when you can afford it.

Get a makeover. Get a new haircut, have your make-up done by a pro, buy a new outfit, or try a new style. It’s even more fun if you do this with a friend.

Shake up your morning routine. Instead of following the same wake-up routine every day, start your day off different. Get up ten minutes early and have breakfast outside. Turn off the TV and put on music. Make love before work.

Be the host. Take the initiative to entertain, and invite friends or family over for dinner or something different – like a wine tasting or game night.

Move your furniture. Rearrange or redecorate a room, switching things up enough that it feels new and different.

Go cheer. Attend a competitive, fast-paced event, like basketball, or racing where the energy and excitement of the sport is contagious

GO HAVE SOME FUN!!

_______________________________________________

Fay Prairie is a personal life coach and speaker specializing in relationships and POSITIVE, empowering mindsets.

She helps set you free from stress, anxiety, worry, negativity, and depression, so you can be a Better You, have Better Relationships and live a Better Life!

Contact Fay to set up a FREE 30 minute call to
discover how Personal Life Coaching can help you to begin making positive changes in your life!

E-mail: fay@fayprairie.com
Call: 507-829-0181

Fay also provides workshops and trainings for businesses and schools. Check out her speaking page by Clicking Here

Some of you know that Fay lost her son to suicide in 2009. The journey of healing has led Fay to begin presenting her story along with what she has learned as a mother/counselor/coach to help SAVE LIVES. check out her story by clicking here

A woman was telling me that her boss was a very negative person. It felt like he constantly criticized and berated her about her work, even though other people consistently told her that she did a great job.

He was making her life miserable, but she needed the job and she actually liked her job.

She asked me what she should do.

I’ve really learned in life that the best place to start out is to talk to them.

Sometimes people don’ t even realize how they are coming across until they are called out on it and sometimes once you have the courage to call them out on it, they’ll start trying to be better.

Often, the reason someone bullies another is that they can get by with it. When you stop letting them treat you that way and you start calling them out on it and standing up for yourself, things can change.

I told her, the next time he criticizes you for any reason, turn to him, look him straight in the eye and say quite firmly,

“I would appreciate if you not talk to me like that ever again. It hurts my feelings and stops me from doing as good a job as you would like.”

If you’re not used to speaking up for yourself, this can take a tremendous amount of courage.

It was extremely hard for her but, she did it and she was amazed at how much it helped.

He drastically reduced the number of times he talked down to her. She continued to practice her skills by saying it each time it happened.

She’s now utterly amazed that he has almost completely stopped talking to her in that way.

He’s even caught himself a few times and apologized.

She said, “You mean I could have ended his bad temper and treatment of me a long time ago if I had only had the courage to confront him directly the first time it happened?”

• How many times is there something we’d like to say to someone but we’re afraid so we keep silent and hold it inside?
• How many times could a candid conversation with someone clear the air and save us days/weeks/months of pain and frustration?

Yet, we see the worst case scenario happening in our mind and become so fearful of it that we shy away from saying what needs to be said.

Often, when you identify the fear and move towards it, it grows smaller and more manageable.

In contrast, when you back away from a fear-inducing situation or person, your fear grows larger and larger.

Soon it dominates your thinking and preoccupies
you during the day and keeps you up at night.

Fear of confronting it is very common, yet the best way to deal with fear is to address it head on.

Your ability to confront, deal with and act in spite of your fears is the key to happiness and success.

You can start practicing now–Identify a person or situation in your life of which you are afraid and resolve to deal with that fear situation immediately.

Resolve to confront the situation or person
and put the fear behind you.

Take action now to work towards dissolving your unhappiness around the situation or person.

Remember the definition of courage is:
Feel the Fear and do it Anyway.

______________________________________________________________________________

Fay Prairie is a personal life coach and speaker specializing in relationships and POSITIVE, empowering mindsets.

She helps set you free from stress, anxiety, worry, negativity, and depression, so you can be a Better You, have Better Relationships and live a Better Life!

Contact Fay to set up a FREE 30 minute call to discover how Personal Life Coaching can help you to begin making positive changes in your life!

Are you rolling around in this?

What would you say about a person who never takes out their garbage?

They leave it stored in their drawers, in their cupboards, in plastic totes and boxes all around the house.

You’d probably call them a hoarder.

Let’s say, in addition, from time to time, they pull it out, spread it all over the floor and roll in it, sometimes for hours.

Sounds pretty ridiculous, right?

Yet, we all do something very similar to this, and it makes our life stink!!

We all hold onto garbage: resentments, anger, past embarrassing situations, negative thoughts, out dated ways of thinking.

Every once in a while we pull them out and roll around in them. (sometimes for days)

Some of the garbage may look like this

• “How dare they talk to me like that, treat me like that, do that, etc….”
• “Well, I’ll show them they can’t get by with that……”
• “Things have been horrible and they’ll never get any better…..”
• “I can’t believe I did or said that….what’s wrong with me…..”

As we roll around in our garbage, our anger, resentment, embarrassment, and negativity expands.

Lesson: Take your garbage out as soon as you can, and don’t go try to get it back off the truck or back off the burn pile.

Let it go. When you roll around in it, it stinks up your life!!

Could Perfectionism actually be a Weakness?

Do you ever ‘kinda brag’about being a perfectionist?

Unlike other obsessions and addictions, perfectionism is something a lot of people celebrate, believing it’s an asset.

But true perfectionism can actually get in the way of productivity and happiness.

I recently read “Feeling Good” by David Burns and he says that in his more than 35,000 therapy sessions he has learned that:

“perfectionism is arguably the surest way to undermine happiness and productivity.”

He states that there is a difference between the healthy pursuit of excellence and neurotic perfectionism, but he states that in the pursuit of excellence, people often fall into perfectionism.

• Have you ever obsessed over a report when your boss said it was already plenty good enough?
• Have you ever lost an object of little importance but just had to keep looking for it?
• Do people often tell you, “Just let it go”?

Aiming for “perfect” instead of “good enough” can seriously backfire.

This happened to me when I was getting ready to do a workshop. I took a lot of time to understand the group’s needs and personalize the materials for them. The truth is that I already had materials I had used several times with great results to use. But my wanting to make it “perfect” led me to scrap all of that and redo the whole thing.

The result, it wasn’t as good because it was all new and redone. I felt jumbled and not as comfortable with my slides. If I had shot for average instead of perfect, I would have been more at ease, less anxious and done a much better job.

A new mindset that I’ve implemented from this is to:

“Aim for Average.”

Things have become must easier in my life when I aim for average instead of perfectionism.

Overachievers have such high expectations of themselves.

So instead of pushing yourself to give 100% (or 110%, whatever that means) you can go for giving 75% or 50% of what you usually might offer.

My new mantra,
“Done is better than perfect” –

That’s not to excuse shoddy work.

Rather, the idea is to get work done and move forward rather than being held back by perfectionism. (perfectionism can be so stressful and so time consuming)

It’s better to have things complete and done than flawless…..

Sometimes, perfectionist procrastinate because they have the fear of it not being done flawlessly.

They increase their anxiety with the fear that it may not turn out “perfect” or that someone will find a flaw.

That anxiety begins to be what fuels them to work, work, and work. Yet, the anxiety inside of them isn’t healthy for them, physically or mentally.

Aiming to be average can be really hard for a perfectionist and it can take a lot of courage and strength to allow themselves to do something “average.”

Yet, the physical and mental health benefits are worth it.

In the book, Burns states: “There are two doors to enlightenment. One is marked, ‘Perfection’ and the other is marked, ‘Average.’ The ‘Perfection’ door is ornate, fancy, and seductive… So you try to go through the ‘Perfection’ door and always discover a brick wall on the other side…

On the other side of the ‘Average’ door, in contrast, there’s a magic garden. But it may have never occurred to you to open the door to take a look.

He also wrote, “Much of our suffering derives from our perfectionism, and our belief that we should be ‘special.’

But when you don’t have to be special, life becomes more special.

Actually, there is no perfectionism. It’s just a con game; it promises riches and delivers misery.

The harder you strive for perfectionism, the worse your disappointment will become.

Every single thing you ever do can be improved if you look at it closely and critically enough. So, if you are a perfectionist, you’re guaranteed to be a loser because nothing will ever be good enough.

If this sounds like you, try to do something really, really hard.

Aim to be average for a day.

You could also make a list of all the advantages and disadvantages of being a perfectionist. It can help you to see that it’s not that advantageous to you to be a perfectionist.

So, again. I challenge you to aim for AVERAGE and see how it lightens up the pressure and anxiety in your life.