You would think it would be an easy choice between working or having fun, right? Not for me!

I was born and raised in Minnesota, a typical Midwesterner by most standards. I am also of German and Norwegian ancestry. Im telling you this because I, like many of us, grew up with a strong work ethic. In fact, in my family work always came before fun. As many of you already know, the work is never done, which means the fun times are few and far between.

An even bigger stretch was the idea that work and fun could go together and it was not an either/or; both could actually happen at the same time. Who knew?

It was hard to move from making work the only priority to incorporating fun into the things I did, even though I knew how important it was. Just as I had learned growing up, work was still first priority. I knew that is not what I wanted and I would have to find a way to make another choice. Given this work ethic hardwired into my brain, I clearly had something to work on.

Thats when I heard about a workshop focusing on adding fun into your life. A friend of mine was going, and although I was still skeptical, I thought I would give it a try.

I enjoyed the workshop, brought home a chart to help me intentionally add fun things and laid it on my desk not quite ready to dive into it. Every now and then I picked it up and thought maybe I could add some fun to my life. I started small, but the more I did, the more I liked it. Before I realized it, searching out things that were new and different had actually became part of my life.

One of the things I searched out was how to paint the beautiful mandala stones that you see on social media. It took quite a while to find a teacher so I could learn how to paint them, but when I did, I had so much fun that I decided that others might enjoy this, too. That led me in a direction I had not expected: I now teach others how to paint the beautiful stones.

I know for a fact that if I had not taken that workshop on fun, I probably would have continued to fit fun in when I could rather than making an intentional effort to seek it. This helped me to change my belief that work is the only important attribute to have, and it was easier than I thought to make this a daily intention even for me.

I dont believe that at our essence we are meant to struggle to be who we are. I think all too often we forget that our loving and gracious God has given us the capacity to for joy and fun, which sometimes gets lost in daily life. I would challenge you today to begin to think about how you can add fun into even the hardest parts if your life.

Sandy Thibault is a life coach, author, speaker and owner of Safari of the Spirit Life Coaching in Savage. She is the author of Selmas Spirit A Journey of Peace and Forgiveness and her new book, Change Your Perspective, Change Your Life 52 Ways To Inspire You to Action. For more information go to her website, safariofthespirit.com.

Link:

Spiritual Reflections: Even for a Midwesterner, work and play can be balanced - SW News Media