Have you ever felt too busy or overwhelmed to make room for fun in your life? In this episode of Happily Self-Conscious, Tyler Simone sits down with Dr. Mike Rucker, author of The Fun Habit, to discuss how intentionally incorporating fun into your life can transform your well-being, productivity, and happiness.
We explore the difference between happiness and fun, why so many of us are “fun-starved,” and how society’s obsession with sacrifice has made joy an afterthought. Dr. Rucker shares actionable insights, like the power of “microjoys,” scheduling fun on your calendar, and shifting your mindset from “I have to” to “I want to.”
Whether you’re navigating toxic positivity, balancing work and play, or simply looking for ways to recharge, this episode offers practical strategies to design a life that’s not just productive—but enjoyable. If you’re ready to rediscover fun as the ultimate wellness hack, tune in now!
Subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an upload! And follow Tyler for more inspiration, and a behind the scenes look at her life, living happily self-conscious.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Tyler Simone and this is the Happily Self-Conscious podcast, the show where it's
(00:06):
cool to be self-conscious.
As a personal development enthusiast, I love to learn how I can become better in all areas
of life and I want to share with you transformative tips and tricks to help you also become your
best self.
Together, we'll learn how we can become more self-conscious.
Let's do it.
(00:26):
Hello there.
Welcome to episode number 27 of the Happily Self-Conscious podcast.
(00:46):
I hope you're doing well.
I have a very special episode for you today and of course, I feel like they're all special
in their own way.
But today, I will be sharing a conversation with you that I hope will inspire you to
include more fun into your life.
I recently spoke with Dr. Mike Rucker, an organizational psychologist, behavioral scientist,
(01:07):
and charter member of the International Positive Psychology Association.
He has been academically published in publications such as the International Journal of Workplace
Health Management and his ideas about fun and health have been featured in the Wall Street
Journal, Washington Post, Fast Company, Psychology Today, Forbes, Vox, Thrive Global, Mindful,
(01:31):
and the BBC to name a few.
Dr. Mike Rucker is the author of The Fun Habit, a beautiful and insightful novel about the
scientific benefits of fun and how you can incorporate more fun into your own life.
I've had this book on my nightstand for the past few months and I've learned so much.
(01:52):
In his novel, Dr. Rucker has included loads of research and various actionable steps and
strategies that we can all use to make fun an effortless habit, which has been proven
to increase well-being, joy, productivity, and so much more.
We'll get into our interview in just a second, but I did want to share that if you're listening
(02:13):
to this and thinking fun, how can fun be that life changing?
Or who has time for fun when there are so many things to do, you're not alone.
It's true.
There are a lot of things to do in our day to day lives and sometimes it can be hard
to find time to truly enjoy ourselves without feeling guilty or like we have other things
(02:36):
that we could be doing.
But as you'll hear this episode, fun is not really an option when it comes to your overall
wellness.
It's a necessity.
We live in a world where productivity and work is promoted and fun is not.
Fun is not necessarily encouraged and because of that, we don't prioritize it or see it
(02:59):
as important, unfortunately, but it is so important.
We go through so much pain and disappointment, grief, loss, and other very uncomfortable
and sad situations in our lives, but it's in those moments where we're truly enjoying
ourselves and having fun that gets us through.
It's safe to admit that a lot of us are fun starved.
(03:23):
As we grow older, fun falls to the wayside and we go months or even years without having
any fun.
Not only does fun make our lives worth living, but it keeps us healthy.
It reduces our anxiety, stress, it relieves loneliness, boredom, and it keeps us young.
I hope that this conversation inspires you to make it a point to schedule more fun into
(03:47):
your day on a daily basis and encourages you to allow yourself the opportunity to let loose
and enjoy yourself because, after all, that's what life's all about.
What inspired you to explore fun as a subject specifically and to then go on to write the
fun habit?
Yeah, so I've always loved positive psychology and for folks listening that don't know what
(04:13):
that is, it was essentially a facet of psychology that was not necessarily invented, but the
term was coined about the beginning of the millennium by a host of clinical psychologists
that knew these tools for betterment existed, but we weren't really talking about them because
academically up until that point, psychology was really used as a tool to treat deficits,
(04:38):
like depression and anxiety.
We weren't really having open conversations about things like gratitude and happiness
and mindfulness as ways for people to better themselves.
At the onset of that, we really did focus on happiness because, again, we hadn't really
talked about it.
(04:59):
That was good.
I think some interesting things came out of it.
A lot of folks are aware of the world happiness report and things of that nature, but where
it became problematic is we overly focused on this ideal of happiness.
Now we have a term for it, toxic positivity, but before then, we weren't really being mindful
(05:23):
that as we elevated happiness as an ideal, because happiness is pretty hard to achieve.
It's kind of ambiguous concept.
It means different things to different people.
It certainly is something that you look at in the rear view mirror.
Someone asks you, are you happy?
It requires introspection.
(05:44):
That paradoxically, as we were making people worried about how do I optimize for happiness,
we were making some of the most unhappy people.
To answer your question, I fell in that camp.
I had done a lot to really live this pretty happy life.
Then all of us who are eventually going to get walloped by some sort of change, unfortunately,
(06:09):
unexpectedly, my younger brother passed away from a pulmonary embolism.
If here I was, everything was going my way.
I just had two kids and my career was taking off.
I was doing all the things that I should do.
Yet what I should have been doing in at least that period was mourning this humongous loss
(06:31):
of someone that I loved.
Instead, I was pretty pollyanna about it, because again, life's about being happy.
What happened, like happens to so many folks, is that I was starting to get pretty unhappy.
The more I tried to grab the tiger by its tail, that metaphor, it became more elusive.
(06:53):
As I got into a darker, darker place, I wanted to understand why.
Maybe there was some serendipity into why the book came about.
Around that time, 2015 plus or minus, we were starting to realize that especially here in
the West, as we were elevating happiness as an ideal, it was becoming pretty problematic.
(07:15):
That's because happiness to some degree is reliant on comparing ourselves to others.
Also, it's not meant to be something that's achieved.
It really is meant to be something in the moment.
This reframe of, well, how do I create joyful moments?
How do I create this life that's fun, that draws me into the things that I want to do?
(07:38):
How can that be more helpful than how can I become happy?
That's the elevator pitch for the book.
Yeah, yeah.
That sums it up.
It makes you think of the word effort.
I guess we don't really think of happiness as requiring effort, but you go into it in
(08:01):
the book and how to include fun into your life on a daily basis.
You mentioned your pursuit of happiness and constantly striving for it and it being elusive.
What would be the difference between striving for it and putting effort into it in that
way versus the introspection and the effort that it actually takes to be happy because
(08:24):
they're two very different things.
Yeah, and I would reframe effort as being deliberate because both take effort.
The problem is with happiness, the effort is always chasing something that's on the horizon.
When you do that, what happens, what we now know, because this is not just like an assertion
or conjecture, this is empirically validated, that if you're using that effort to always
(08:49):
get to somewhere that's out there in the horizon, some might even call it a mirage, you start
to put your focus on that gap between where you are and where you think happiness might
be.
We could have a whole podcast about why that's problematic, but sometimes folks always move
(09:10):
the goalposts on themselves, sometimes they don't celebrate the winds along the way.
Another big problem is social media where we're comparing ourselves against the curated
lives of others and we don't stop to think like, okay, wait a second, I've never seen
their bad days.
I'm evaluating my life against someone who's essentially handpicked the best moments of
their life.
(09:33):
It's not necessarily about effort because in that scenario, you're still putting effort
towards trying to get somewhere, it's just getting there is impossible.
It's more about being deliberate of how you spend that energy and then enjoying what you're
doing because oftentimes, if you make deliberate choices about how you use that energy and
(09:53):
then remind yourself, wait, I can also enjoy this process.
I can surround myself in an environment where I want to do the work.
I can surround myself around people that lift me up, don't draw me down.
Oh, I need to do this hard thing, but I can do it in a manner that I find enjoyable, not
something that's completely depleting.
If you change those variables, then you're still striving for betterment, but you're
(10:18):
doing it in a way that's restorative rather than something that's like, if I just get
through today, I'll finally arrive, which we know is a fallacy.
Yeah, definitely.
You hinted at this or touched on this just now, the enjoyment in social media and the
fact that we see the highlight reel of people and their good moments.
(10:42):
I remember in your book, you mentioned how fun is, it's different for everybody.
It makes me think, you have to actually give time to figure out what's fun for you as a
person as an individual rather than what's fun for everybody or from what you can see
is fun for other people.
(11:04):
How would you differentiate happiness and fun?
How are they different?
So fun is enjoying what you're doing.
Where happiness is this lagging indicator of how am I doing?
And so in any given time, happiness might be different, but this is where I think the word
that you use does come into play.
(11:26):
So if we're looking at how we experience life through energy, if you're contemplating your
own happiness, then you're in the state of rumination or introspection where that energy
you could be using to actually enjoy the company of others or engage in an activity that lights
you up is now being used of, hey, am I in a good place compared to the Joneses?
(11:49):
Is my life going in the right direction?
And so there should be time for that, but what becomes problematic is that if we get
stuck in that state of rumination, then oftentimes if we're always looking at happiness off in
the distance, it can bleed into our identity that we are unhappy people.
And that's very insidious because it happens slowly.
(12:09):
But over time, it's like, well, dang, I just, I'm not arriving.
So there must be something wrong here.
And the problem is, is that once it takes root in our identity, we just naturally find
artifacts to kind of prove that we're right because as humans, that's what we do, right?
I mean, that's been well explored this confirmation bias that happens because we don't like our
(12:31):
identity challenge.
And so to mitigate those types of things, when we talk about fun, it's like, wait, what
do I like to do?
Who are the people that I want to be with?
What are the things that light me up?
So I can integrate those in my life and remind myself that it's not necessary to be in the
(12:52):
state of evaluation because why does happiness really even matter?
I mean, who am I telling that to?
Unless it really is something where episodically you're kind of using that as your yardstick.
But outside of that, designing a life that's enjoyable really means that through the entire
(13:14):
corpus of whatever time period you want to say, whether it's 160 hours in your week or
in a given month or if you look back at the entire year, you can say, was I enjoying the
things that I'm doing?
Because if you don't do that, the problem is, we've been so conditioned to look at our
calendar through the lens of productivity, we forget that we also need to enjoy what
(13:37):
we do.
And so what's been kind of rewarding and validating since the book came out is we now
know that folks, and these are busy folks, so it's not necessarily folks that have a
lot of time affluence or whatever, folks across the board that say they have a high level
of life satisfaction, which is different than happiness, right?
(13:57):
Just satisfaction with the way their life is going.
The number one predictor of that is folks that say they're also enjoying what they're
doing.
So we know that one, enjoying what you're doing, having fun, what you're doing is very
restorative and it allows you to play this long game.
The other is that we know that folks that are deliberate about putting fun into their
(14:20):
schedules, so the science behind this is called the Hadamnic flexibility principle, there
are actually paradoxically also the most productive because they know when to stop, right?
And so when the work day is done, they have, you know, oftentimes have transition rituals,
they know that they need to put fun with their friends on the schedule so that, you know,
(14:41):
they don't just kind of plop down on the couch and engage in what a psychologist called passive
leisure, which doesn't really, you know, lead to anything.
Ultimately you look back and go, wow, that week went by fast, right?
With like no fond memories to kind of latch onto.
Instead of, you know, going out and dancing with friends or, you know, reading a good
(15:02):
book, something where you're encoding new memories so that when you do look back, you
could say, hey, this was enjoyable.
And so folks that are able to do that are the ones that kind of find themselves in an
upward spiral because they show up the next day with their batteries charged.
And what we know is the folks that aren't enjoying what they're doing, you know, even
(15:23):
though they might feel, you know, and there's so many different reasons why this might be,
you know, the Puritan or ethic is oftentimes villainized, but there are other reasons that
like if I just grind it out another week, you know, next week will be okay.
That becomes the suspicious cycle.
And ultimately we now know that it leads, you know, it's the number one cause of burnout.
(15:44):
We're seeing that across all vocations.
And so how ironic, right?
That, you know, this idea of servitude and sort of, you know, approaching things, mortgaging
off this idea of enjoyment in the future because it will come if I just work a little bit harder,
it ends up burning you out so you don't enjoy your life at all.
(16:05):
And so we know that, you know, creating this blended life where you're looking at what
you do not just through the lens of productivity, but also are you enjoying at least some of
the time, whether that's work, you know, leisure outside of work or hopefully both, those are
what lead to not just the highest levels of life satisfaction, but funny enough, the highest
(16:27):
levels of productivity as well.
And then the added benefit, this isn't from the same, you know, corpus of science, but
adjacent science, when folks are enjoying what they're doing and they're not depleted,
especially folks in knowledge work are the ones that come up with the most innovative
solutions because it's really hard to think in a nonlinear fashion if you're tired, right?
(16:49):
Like when we're tired, I'm at anyone listening knows it's like, I just need to get through
today, right?
And you do what you remember you're supposed to do so that you can just finish it.
But when you are in a restorative state, because you've been enjoying your time, that's when
you have that psychological safety to be like, hey, there might be a better way to do this.
(17:11):
And so that innovative nonlinear thinking also leads to better solutions, if that's
the field of work you're in.
Yeah, yeah.
And that makes sense.
And knowing that and the growing research around productivity and having, you know, including
funds so that you can be more productive.
Why do you think that it's not made to be required?
(17:34):
Why are we not, you know, requiring people to have fun?
Why is it not made to be a necessity in our lives?
It's almost like this thing that like you mentioned in the book, it's something you
do every now and then instead of it being something we need to be doing on a regular basis.
Yeah, that's a great question, I think, because we really do elevate sacrifice.
(17:57):
But both of those can coexist.
That's why I, you know, wrote the last chapter about, you know, big change makers that have
essentially dedicated their entire life to service.
We know the ones that aren't able to at least take some time, you know, to find a way to
enjoy some of the things they're doing, ultimately burn out.
(18:18):
And so I think it's because we found value, excuse me, value in sacrifice, right?
But that can also be partitioned with the fact that if we don't find any joy at all,
you know, then ultimately we're not going to have the reserve to do something else.
(18:41):
And so, you know, the American dream is sort of rooted in meritocracy.
If I just work a little bit harder, if I just, you know, make the person at the higher tier
above me satisfied with my work, then I can get there and finally arrive.
And again, the problem is oftentimes that doesn't happen.
(19:02):
But also that if we're not enjoying what we're doing, we ultimately kind of give up on that
anyways.
And so there are a bunch of different headwinds why we haven't made it kind of a necessary
part of, you know, social normative behavior.
But I think that's changing.
(19:23):
Oftentimes people get confused when I start talking about leisure because they're like,
wait, is this just about after work?
And that's certainly not the case.
I think people should enjoy what they're doing across the board if that's possible.
Because there's certainly going to be vocations like, you know, OR physicians and, you know,
military folks in war zones where that's just not going to be possible because of the nature
(19:44):
of the work, right?
But there's so many areas of work where if you just look at, you know, what the individual
is doing and trying to figure out ways to improve their circumstance, not only are you
going to change how they feel about work, but you're also going to improve the work
product.
Back to leisure, though, now that we've said it's not just about taking a vacation.
(20:08):
I mean, this, you know, information is well known enough now that you're seeing Fortune
500 companies actually pay people to take vacations because that's how ingrained it
is in our culture, right?
I mean, the U.S. is second to last in the developed world with giving access to vacation
(20:28):
days, right?
I think on average we give 10 a year.
There's one country below us, Micronesia, that gives nine.
So we're almost dead last, right?
But I mean, we can't do much to change that, you know, if we're working for someone, we
can't, hey, you know, this weird guy, Mike Rucker, said, you know, you should give me
(20:48):
a vacation, that's not going to work.
But I find what's more interesting with regards to the statistics is that only half of us
even take that meager amount, right?
And so corporations have become wise to this and they're actually giving incentives for
folks to take their vacation because they know that one, if they burn out, they're not
(21:09):
going to be able to keep their, you know, their good employees.
And two, when folks do take their vacations, they come back and they're better because
when we do enjoy some of our time, then everything else becomes better.
And so this isn't about living a life of whimsy or trying to find fun in every moment.
It's about, you know, living this balanced life where at least some of what you do,
(21:32):
again, whether that's in work, outside of work or both, is so important with regards
to playing the long game.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
And incorporating fun into your life and creating these fun moments, you're not trying to get
rid of unhappy or unpleasant experiences, right?
(21:53):
Because that would be toxic positivity.
So what's the difference between the toxic positivity and then living a fun life?
Yeah.
So you cued that up nicely.
I think one of the areas that we found, you know, back in 2015 that I alluded to earlier,
is that when you're, you know, this kind of quote unquote, good vibes only crowd, if your
(22:16):
days are meant to always be great when something does come at you, you don't have the emotional
flexibility to deal with it.
And these folks really fall off their pedestal.
So ultimately, you know, if you find that all you're doing is kind of living through
escape, you know, chasing the next fun adventure, like then maybe you want to integrate some
(22:39):
things that are hard, like what is that challenge, right?
Oftentimes when people get hung up on that, like, what are you saying?
Am I supposed to have fun all the time?
It's like in the nineties when sleep deprivation was a huge problem and we were trying to get
folks to sleep more, right?
I mean, I think that's pretty well known now, fortunately, that if you're sleeping less
than five hours a day, ultimately, you're going to fall off a cliff and you're not going
(23:01):
to be productive.
Once we course corrected that, we're not like, Hey, you should sleep 24 hours a day because,
you know, things are going to be so much better.
More sleep is better.
That's not the issue here with fun either.
The issue is that we're so fun star that folks are, you know, rightfully have really poor
mental health and are unhappy, unfortunately.
(23:24):
And so the remedy for that is realizing that you have the agency and autonomy, at least
in some periods of your life.
Again, I like the hundred and six, eight hour framework because it's just short enough,
you know, where you can go, wait a second, there are a few things that I can do.
And let me kind of sit there for a second.
(23:45):
Like when someone's like, well, I just, you know, I wouldn't even know where to start.
It could be as simple as just reclaiming your lunch break.
You know, my background academically is in organizational psychology.
And we know it's that simple that the folks that are able to take a real break from their
work, you know, from the morning session to the afternoon session and use that to do something
(24:09):
that they want to do.
Let's say they're an introvert.
So they get engrossed, you know, in eating a good meal and reading a good book or they're
an extrovert.
So they walk down the street and find their friend and, you know, whether it's Esplanade
or whatever, you know, have a really enjoyable lunch.
When they show up the second half of their workday, they're able to do the hard things
(24:30):
instead of sitting, staring at their screen and just clearing their inbox.
So again, this isn't necessarily about, you know, how do I learn how to juggle?
It's about how do I find these micro moments of joy within my week so that I live a restorative
life and not something that's just, okay, if I get through this, I can get to the next
(24:50):
thing.
I really like the mental model of how can I change some of the things that I do from
I have to do this to I get to do this, even if it's the same thing, right?
With parenting, we are often able to make, you know, pretty good headway in that regard,
just reminding parents that you don't have to do everything through a sense of duty.
(25:13):
Like an example I often bring when I'm working with parents is, you know, so many parents
just bring their kids to the park and we'll sit on a bench, you know, and scroll through
Instagram, you know, thinking that they're essentially childcare.
It's like, yeah, that has been your habit, but why don't you ask your kid what he or
she wants to do with you that you guys both find enjoyable.
(25:37):
For my daughter and I, it was cooking classes, right?
Because I really wanted to learn to cook.
It was something I never had time for.
She was like, heck yeah, let's do this.
And you know, we started going to a cooking school, but that became too expensive.
So now we just do it through YouTube tutorials, which is completely free.
And so even if you're not a parent, it's like, how can you make these small sort of, you
(25:59):
know, mental shifts, even if it's doing something that you already do.
And so there's work that I love to cite in this area from Dr. Cassie Holmes out of UCLA.
She wrote a great book herself called The Happier Hour, and she just had folks go into
their weekend reminding themselves it's a vacation, you know, because so many of us habituate
her behavior that we're like, okay, well, the weekends for, you know, catching up on
(26:23):
my personal things.
And so what she found was that people didn't necessarily change their behavior, you know,
the things that they did.
It's not like they went off and had vacations or whatever, but just that reminder of like,
wait a second, this is my two days for renewal.
This is the time that I get to decide what I want to do was enough to bring them to Monday
(26:46):
with such a better attitude and so much more energy to it, kind of attack the challenges
that they had.
And so, you know, if you can make better choices about how you spend your time and integrate,
you know, opportunities for active leisure, if you have that type of privilege in your
life, great, because we know that we'll have, you know, a bigger impact.
But sometimes it's just about reframing what you already do or negotiating, you know, what
(27:11):
you do with the people that you love in a way where everyone finds it enjoyable.
Just going off of that to kind of close this out, if someone is just starting to maybe
want to incorporate more fun into their life, what advice would you offer to them?
Yeah, so it's really starting of being mindful how you spend your time, right?
(27:35):
Oftentimes I suggest there's something you can easily find online called the record play
model.
And it's a way to just look at how you're spending your time in four different ways.
And so, you know, there are these things that we refer to as microjoys, you know, just walking
your dog in nature, you know, playing with your kids, the copy date with your friend,
(27:56):
or do you have a few of those in your week because they're really easy to do.
And if you let your life get so busy that there are none of them in your schedule, it's a great
way to be like, okay, let me pre-commit to making sure that I just do one or two of these
things.
And that's all it takes, right?
You remind yourself like, oh, yeah, I am busy, but I can still add a couple of these things
(28:20):
that give me a smile that, you know, when I do have a hard day, I can look forward to
because I know I'm going to be able to see, you know, some of whom I really enjoy in a
couple of days.
The living quadrant are hard things that lead to betterment.
And so, as you look back at your schedule, if you don't have at least one of these things,
you know, you might want to ask yourself why, right?
(28:42):
Because most of us feel better when there's some type of opportunity for growth.
As I said before, I do advocate for hard things.
So there's this concept called type two fun, where what you're doing in the moment, you
wouldn't go, oh my goodness, this is fun.
You know, oftentimes this is endurance sport athletes like, you know, a rock climber, it's
(29:03):
kind of almost about to, you know, fall off the cliff.
But then when they get to the top, they're like, oh my gosh, that was so fun, right?
And so if there, you know, it could be a spiritual practice, it could be, you know, training
for some sort of sport, it could be, you know, starting a business, you know, something
that you're really passionate about.
If there are none of these things that you know are going to kind of, you know, be expansive
(29:26):
and light you up, you might want to ask yourself, why not?
And see if there's a way to incorporate those.
And so asking better questions about the really hard things in your life can be helpful.
And then the easiest low hanging fruit is what I call yielding activities.
And those are the things that we just do to pacify our time.
Oftentimes, you know, things like mindlessly scrolling social media or plopping down on
(29:49):
the couch and channel surfing.
So we, you know, I never villainize someone for watching their favorite show.
I mean, I especially, you know, if you're with your family, we know those things are
good use of the time.
But if you're kind of just trying to escape a really bad day habitually, right?
I mean, if you have a horrible day, you just want to forget about it.
(30:11):
Like, you know, you do you.
But if you're doing this as a, as kind of a chronic way to escape, escape stress, we
know that it never is restorative.
In fact, it really does lead to more stress because as you continue week after week of
not encoding any information that says, Hey, I'm having some fun in what I do, you'll look
(30:33):
back and go, where did the time go?
Right.
And, you know, there's a whole host of research, you know, that backs this up.
I think most people are familiar with Bronnie Ware's work, the five regrets of the dine.
And so, you know, making sure that there, those yielding activities where, you know,
I don't need to scroll social media for three hours or, you know, right now with the election
(30:55):
cycle.
I can get all the information I need about the election, you know, in 30 minutes, I
don't need to just get repetitive information for three hours.
How could I instead go connect with someone who's going to make me feel safe in an environment
that I'm going to enjoy after I get, you know, a dose of the information that I need like
(31:15):
in 30 minutes.
So that yielding category is, you know, I think most people can start by just looking,
you know, at the health meter on their phone and see how much time they spent on apps.
Almost, you know, seven, eight times out of 10, folks are so surprised when they're like,
wow, and sometimes it's not social media.
It's silly things like Slack or Gmail.
(31:36):
Like I wait, I spent 14 hours in my inbox.
Like that's not a good use of time.
My job is not sending emails.
And so then you can start to ask, again, better questions about how am I spending this time
and could I potentially do something else, you know, by optimizing that way.
And so it goes back again by not just looking at your calendar through the lens of productivity,
(32:01):
but also about how could I enjoy some of the things that I'm doing on my calendar.
Yeah, it makes me think about just the power of choice and like taking control of your
own life and making better choices and not necessarily feeling like happiness is kind
of, you know, given to you on a silver platter, but actually taking the time to figure out
how you can make your life more enjoyable.
(32:24):
It makes perfect sense.
Yeah.
And so two quick behavioral science concepts that are just, you know, premeditation and
pre-commitment.
I mean, part of the issue is, you know, especially as we get older, we just habituate our lives
because it's easy, right?
We just let one week roll into the next.
And so I guess kind of a second strategy to often your listeners is it's as simple as
(32:48):
just writing down a list of things that you want to do because once you identify them,
right, they're there.
And you know, some people say they really benefit from keeping that list, you know,
either on their mirror or by a desk because you're like, okay, wait a second, four weeks
have now gone by and I haven't done one of these things like I need to do it.
And so that brings up the second concept, which is pre-commitment.
(33:09):
I mean, if it's something that you want to do, let's say, you know, it's a comedy show
or whatever, just buy the ticket and you're going to go.
If it's, you know, an activity that you want to do with a friend, ask your friend, you
know, commit to the date, put on the calendar and you're going to do it.
That's just the power of our calendars.
(33:29):
I mean, we are slaves to them when it comes to work, right?
So why not, you know, also use them as a tool for our own enjoyment?
And so, you know, that's one of the benefits of a calendar.
Once an activity, you know, shows up there, it's kind of a mutable, right?
We end up doing it.
And so, you know, being premeditated about what you want to do, but then pre-committing
(33:51):
to it means that these things will actually happen.
Yeah, exactly.
I love that.
The power of the calendar.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
Because it is very powerful and seeing a reminder or just having that block of time kind of set
aside in your mind.
It's just, you know, that's what I need to do and it's, you're more likely to do the
fun things for sure.
(34:12):
And it's a tool of resilience.
We know that.
So once it's on your calendar, if you're having a really terrible day, my academic work has
been a lot with physicians.
And so, you know, they can have really hard consecutive days, but if they know they have
a date with their partner, you know, on Saturday, they can put their mind there.
Again, if those don't exist on your calendar, then what they have to look forward to is
(34:37):
another week of, you know, the same sort of agonizing events that they've had in the OR.
So having, again, you know, these microjoys or these moments by your own design, remind
yourself that, you know, at least part of the time you have the agency and the autonomy
to create joyful moments, even if, you know, a lot of the time that you spend, you know,
(35:01):
isn't as enjoyable.
And again, because we're not talking about happiness, because we're not talking about
optimizing some long-term, you know, kind of ambiguous goal, we can start to do this immediately.
Fun is action-oriented, right?
Where, again, happiness tends to be this amorphous thing that we're like, how do I arrive?
(35:21):
Where you can arrive at fun as soon as you have a free day.
The quote for today is directly from Dr. Mike Rucker's book, The Fun Habit.
He says, Don't defer fun until the world's problems are solved, because they never will
be.
We each have the responsibility to create space for renewal, celebration, connection, and
(35:43):
joy for ourselves and even more importantly, for each other.
Thank you so much for listening.
I truly hope that you enjoyed this episode.
And special thank you to Dr. Mike Rucker for speaking with me about his amazing book and
for teaching us all how to have more fun.
If you're interested in The Fun Habit, I will link the book and Dr. Mike Rucker's website
(36:05):
in the show notes.
I'll catch you next time.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to click the follow button so you don't miss future
episodes.
And if you see another one on the list that you think looks interesting, take a listen
or just download it for later.
I'll see you next time.
Hi, I'm Tyler Simone and this is the Happily Self-Conscious podcast, the show where it's
(00:06):
cool to be self-conscious.
As a personal development enthusiast, I love to learn how I can become better in all areas
of life and I want to share with you transformative tips and tricks to help you also become your
best self.
Together, we'll learn how we can become more self-conscious.
Let's do it.
(00:26):
Hello there.
Welcome to episode number 27 of the Happily Self-Conscious podcast.
(00:46):
I hope you're doing well.
I have a very special episode for you today and of course, I feel like they're all special
in their own way.
But today, I will be sharing a conversation with you that I hope will inspire you to
include more fun into your life.
I recently spoke with Dr. Mike Rucker, an organizational psychologist, behavioral scientist,
(01:07):
and charter member of the International Positive Psychology Association.
He has been academically published in publications such as the International Journal of Workplace
Health Management and his ideas about fun and health have been featured in the Wall Street
Journal, Washington Post, Fast Company, Psychology Today, Forbes, Vox, Thrive Global, Mindful,
(01:31):
and the BBC to name a few.
Dr. Mike Rucker is the author of The Fun Habit, a beautiful and insightful novel about the
scientific benefits of fun and how you can incorporate more fun into your own life.
I've had this book on my nightstand for the past few months and I've learned so much.
(01:52):
In his novel, Dr. Rucker has included loads of research and various actionable steps and
strategies that we can all use to make fun an effortless habit, which has been proven
to increase well-being, joy, productivity, and so much more.
We'll get into our interview in just a second, but I did want to share that if you're listening
(02:13):
to this and thinking fun, how can fun be that life changing?
Or who has time for fun when there are so many things to do, you're not alone.
It's true.
There are a lot of things to do in our day to day lives and sometimes it can be hard
to find time to truly enjoy ourselves without feeling guilty or like we have other things
(02:36):
that we could be doing.
But as you'll hear this episode, fun is not really an option when it comes to your overall
wellness.
It's a necessity.
We live in a world where productivity and work is promoted and fun is not.
Fun is not necessarily encouraged and because of that, we don't prioritize it or see it
(02:59):
as important, unfortunately, but it is so important.
We go through so much pain and disappointment, grief, loss, and other very uncomfortable
and sad situations in our lives, but it's in those moments where we're truly enjoying
ourselves and having fun that gets us through.
It's safe to admit that a lot of us are fun starved.
(03:23):
As we grow older, fun falls to the wayside and we go months or even years without having
any fun.
Not only does fun make our lives worth living, but it keeps us healthy.
It reduces our anxiety, stress, it relieves loneliness, boredom, and it keeps us young.
I hope that this conversation inspires you to make it a point to schedule more fun into
(03:47):
your day on a daily basis and encourages you to allow yourself the opportunity to let loose
and enjoy yourself because, after all, that's what life's all about.
What inspired you to explore fun as a subject specifically and to then go on to write the
fun habit?
Yeah, so I've always loved positive psychology and for folks listening that don't know what
(04:13):
that is, it was essentially a facet of psychology that was not necessarily invented, but the
term was coined about the beginning of the millennium by a host of clinical psychologists
that knew these tools for betterment existed, but we weren't really talking about them because
academically up until that point, psychology was really used as a tool to treat deficits,
(04:38):
like depression and anxiety.
We weren't really having open conversations about things like gratitude and happiness
and mindfulness as ways for people to better themselves.
At the onset of that, we really did focus on happiness because, again, we hadn't really
talked about it.
(04:59):
That was good.
I think some interesting things came out of it.
A lot of folks are aware of the world happiness report and things of that nature, but where
it became problematic is we overly focused on this ideal of happiness.
Now we have a term for it, toxic positivity, but before then, we weren't really being mindful
(05:23):
that as we elevated happiness as an ideal, because happiness is pretty hard to achieve.
It's kind of ambiguous concept.
It means different things to different people.
It certainly is something that you look at in the rear view mirror.
Someone asks you, are you happy?
It requires introspection.
(05:44):
That paradoxically, as we were making people worried about how do I optimize for happiness,
we were making some of the most unhappy people.
To answer your question, I fell in that camp.
I had done a lot to really live this pretty happy life.
Then all of us who are eventually going to get walloped by some sort of change, unfortunately,
(06:09):
unexpectedly, my younger brother passed away from a pulmonary embolism.
If here I was, everything was going my way.
I just had two kids and my career was taking off.
I was doing all the things that I should do.
Yet what I should have been doing in at least that period was mourning this humongous loss
(06:31):
of someone that I loved.
Instead, I was pretty pollyanna about it, because again, life's about being happy.
What happened, like happens to so many folks, is that I was starting to get pretty unhappy.
The more I tried to grab the tiger by its tail, that metaphor, it became more elusive.
(06:53):
As I got into a darker, darker place, I wanted to understand why.
Maybe there was some serendipity into why the book came about.
Around that time, 2015 plus or minus, we were starting to realize that especially here in
the West, as we were elevating happiness as an ideal, it was becoming pretty problematic.
(07:15):
That's because happiness to some degree is reliant on comparing ourselves to others.
Also, it's not meant to be something that's achieved.
It really is meant to be something in the moment.
This reframe of, well, how do I create joyful moments?
How do I create this life that's fun, that draws me into the things that I want to do?
(07:38):
How can that be more helpful than how can I become happy?
That's the elevator pitch for the book.
Yeah, yeah.
That sums it up.
It makes you think of the word effort.
I guess we don't really think of happiness as requiring effort, but you go into it in
(08:01):
the book and how to include fun into your life on a daily basis.
You mentioned your pursuit of happiness and constantly striving for it and it being elusive.
What would be the difference between striving for it and putting effort into it in that
way versus the introspection and the effort that it actually takes to be happy because
(08:24):
they're two very different things.
Yeah, and I would reframe effort as being deliberate because both take effort.
The problem is with happiness, the effort is always chasing something that's on the horizon.
When you do that, what happens, what we now know, because this is not just like an assertion
or conjecture, this is empirically validated, that if you're using that effort to always
(08:49):
get to somewhere that's out there in the horizon, some might even call it a mirage, you start
to put your focus on that gap between where you are and where you think happiness might
be.
We could have a whole podcast about why that's problematic, but sometimes folks always move
(09:10):
the goalposts on themselves, sometimes they don't celebrate the winds along the way.
Another big problem is social media where we're comparing ourselves against the curated
lives of others and we don't stop to think like, okay, wait a second, I've never seen
their bad days.
I'm evaluating my life against someone who's essentially handpicked the best moments of
their life.
(09:33):
It's not necessarily about effort because in that scenario, you're still putting effort
towards trying to get somewhere, it's just getting there is impossible.
It's more about being deliberate of how you spend that energy and then enjoying what you're
doing because oftentimes, if you make deliberate choices about how you use that energy and
(09:53):
then remind yourself, wait, I can also enjoy this process.
I can surround myself in an environment where I want to do the work.
I can surround myself around people that lift me up, don't draw me down.
Oh, I need to do this hard thing, but I can do it in a manner that I find enjoyable, not
something that's completely depleting.
If you change those variables, then you're still striving for betterment, but you're
(10:18):
doing it in a way that's restorative rather than something that's like, if I just get
through today, I'll finally arrive, which we know is a fallacy.
Yeah, definitely.
You hinted at this or touched on this just now, the enjoyment in social media and the
fact that we see the highlight reel of people and their good moments.
(10:42):
I remember in your book, you mentioned how fun is, it's different for everybody.
It makes me think, you have to actually give time to figure out what's fun for you as a
person as an individual rather than what's fun for everybody or from what you can see
is fun for other people.
(11:04):
How would you differentiate happiness and fun?
How are they different?
So fun is enjoying what you're doing.
Where happiness is this lagging indicator of how am I doing?
And so in any given time, happiness might be different, but this is where I think the word
that you use does come into play.
(11:26):
So if we're looking at how we experience life through energy, if you're contemplating your
own happiness, then you're in the state of rumination or introspection where that energy
you could be using to actually enjoy the company of others or engage in an activity that lights
you up is now being used of, hey, am I in a good place compared to the Joneses?
(11:49):
Is my life going in the right direction?
And so there should be time for that, but what becomes problematic is that if we get
stuck in that state of rumination, then oftentimes if we're always looking at happiness off in
the distance, it can bleed into our identity that we are unhappy people.
And that's very insidious because it happens slowly.
(12:09):
But over time, it's like, well, dang, I just, I'm not arriving.
So there must be something wrong here.
And the problem is, is that once it takes root in our identity, we just naturally find
artifacts to kind of prove that we're right because as humans, that's what we do, right?
I mean, that's been well explored this confirmation bias that happens because we don't like our
(12:31):
identity challenge.
And so to mitigate those types of things, when we talk about fun, it's like, wait, what
do I like to do?
Who are the people that I want to be with?
What are the things that light me up?
So I can integrate those in my life and remind myself that it's not necessary to be in the
(12:52):
state of evaluation because why does happiness really even matter?
I mean, who am I telling that to?
Unless it really is something where episodically you're kind of using that as your yardstick.
But outside of that, designing a life that's enjoyable really means that through the entire
(13:14):
corpus of whatever time period you want to say, whether it's 160 hours in your week or
in a given month or if you look back at the entire year, you can say, was I enjoying the
things that I'm doing?
Because if you don't do that, the problem is, we've been so conditioned to look at our
calendar through the lens of productivity, we forget that we also need to enjoy what
(13:37):
we do.
And so what's been kind of rewarding and validating since the book came out is we now
know that folks, and these are busy folks, so it's not necessarily folks that have a
lot of time affluence or whatever, folks across the board that say they have a high level
of life satisfaction, which is different than happiness, right?
(13:57):
Just satisfaction with the way their life is going.
The number one predictor of that is folks that say they're also enjoying what they're
doing.
So we know that one, enjoying what you're doing, having fun, what you're doing is very
restorative and it allows you to play this long game.
The other is that we know that folks that are deliberate about putting fun into their
(14:20):
schedules, so the science behind this is called the Hadamnic flexibility principle, there
are actually paradoxically also the most productive because they know when to stop, right?
And so when the work day is done, they have, you know, oftentimes have transition rituals,
they know that they need to put fun with their friends on the schedule so that, you know,
(14:41):
they don't just kind of plop down on the couch and engage in what a psychologist called passive
leisure, which doesn't really, you know, lead to anything.
Ultimately you look back and go, wow, that week went by fast, right?
With like no fond memories to kind of latch onto.
Instead of, you know, going out and dancing with friends or, you know, reading a good
(15:02):
book, something where you're encoding new memories so that when you do look back, you
could say, hey, this was enjoyable.
And so folks that are able to do that are the ones that kind of find themselves in an
upward spiral because they show up the next day with their batteries charged.
And what we know is the folks that aren't enjoying what they're doing, you know, even
(15:23):
though they might feel, you know, and there's so many different reasons why this might be,
you know, the Puritan or ethic is oftentimes villainized, but there are other reasons that
like if I just grind it out another week, you know, next week will be okay.
That becomes the suspicious cycle.
And ultimately we now know that it leads, you know, it's the number one cause of burnout.
(15:44):
We're seeing that across all vocations.
And so how ironic, right?
That, you know, this idea of servitude and sort of, you know, approaching things, mortgaging
off this idea of enjoyment in the future because it will come if I just work a little bit harder,
it ends up burning you out so you don't enjoy your life at all.
(16:05):
And so we know that, you know, creating this blended life where you're looking at what
you do not just through the lens of productivity, but also are you enjoying at least some of
the time, whether that's work, you know, leisure outside of work or hopefully both, those are
what lead to not just the highest levels of life satisfaction, but funny enough, the highest
(16:27):
levels of productivity as well.
And then the added benefit, this isn't from the same, you know, corpus of science, but
adjacent science, when folks are enjoying what they're doing and they're not depleted,
especially folks in knowledge work are the ones that come up with the most innovative
solutions because it's really hard to think in a nonlinear fashion if you're tired, right?
(16:49):
Like when we're tired, I'm at anyone listening knows it's like, I just need to get through
today, right?
And you do what you remember you're supposed to do so that you can just finish it.
But when you are in a restorative state, because you've been enjoying your time, that's when
you have that psychological safety to be like, hey, there might be a better way to do this.
(17:11):
And so that innovative nonlinear thinking also leads to better solutions, if that's
the field of work you're in.
Yeah, yeah.
And that makes sense.
And knowing that and the growing research around productivity and having, you know, including
funds so that you can be more productive.
Why do you think that it's not made to be required?
(17:34):
Why are we not, you know, requiring people to have fun?
Why is it not made to be a necessity in our lives?
It's almost like this thing that like you mentioned in the book, it's something you
do every now and then instead of it being something we need to be doing on a regular basis.
Yeah, that's a great question, I think, because we really do elevate sacrifice.
(17:57):
But both of those can coexist.
That's why I, you know, wrote the last chapter about, you know, big change makers that have
essentially dedicated their entire life to service.
We know the ones that aren't able to at least take some time, you know, to find a way to
enjoy some of the things they're doing, ultimately burn out.
(18:18):
And so I think it's because we found value, excuse me, value in sacrifice, right?
But that can also be partitioned with the fact that if we don't find any joy at all,
you know, then ultimately we're not going to have the reserve to do something else.
(18:41):
And so, you know, the American dream is sort of rooted in meritocracy.
If I just work a little bit harder, if I just, you know, make the person at the higher tier
above me satisfied with my work, then I can get there and finally arrive.
And again, the problem is oftentimes that doesn't happen.
(19:02):
But also that if we're not enjoying what we're doing, we ultimately kind of give up on that
anyways.
And so there are a bunch of different headwinds why we haven't made it kind of a necessary
part of, you know, social normative behavior.
But I think that's changing.
(19:23):
Oftentimes people get confused when I start talking about leisure because they're like,
wait, is this just about after work?
And that's certainly not the case.
I think people should enjoy what they're doing across the board if that's possible.
Because there's certainly going to be vocations like, you know, OR physicians and, you know,
military folks in war zones where that's just not going to be possible because of the nature
(19:44):
of the work, right?
But there's so many areas of work where if you just look at, you know, what the individual
is doing and trying to figure out ways to improve their circumstance, not only are you
going to change how they feel about work, but you're also going to improve the work
product.
Back to leisure, though, now that we've said it's not just about taking a vacation.
(20:08):
I mean, this, you know, information is well known enough now that you're seeing Fortune
500 companies actually pay people to take vacations because that's how ingrained it
is in our culture, right?
I mean, the U.S. is second to last in the developed world with giving access to vacation
(20:28):
days, right?
I think on average we give 10 a year.
There's one country below us, Micronesia, that gives nine.
So we're almost dead last, right?
But I mean, we can't do much to change that, you know, if we're working for someone, we
can't, hey, you know, this weird guy, Mike Rucker, said, you know, you should give me
(20:48):
a vacation, that's not going to work.
But I find what's more interesting with regards to the statistics is that only half of us
even take that meager amount, right?
And so corporations have become wise to this and they're actually giving incentives for
folks to take their vacation because they know that one, if they burn out, they're not
(21:09):
going to be able to keep their, you know, their good employees.
And two, when folks do take their vacations, they come back and they're better because
when we do enjoy some of our time, then everything else becomes better.
And so this isn't about living a life of whimsy or trying to find fun in every moment.
It's about, you know, living this balanced life where at least some of what you do,
(21:32):
again, whether that's in work, outside of work or both, is so important with regards
to playing the long game.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
And incorporating fun into your life and creating these fun moments, you're not trying to get
rid of unhappy or unpleasant experiences, right?
(21:53):
Because that would be toxic positivity.
So what's the difference between the toxic positivity and then living a fun life?
Yeah.
So you cued that up nicely.
I think one of the areas that we found, you know, back in 2015 that I alluded to earlier,
is that when you're, you know, this kind of quote unquote, good vibes only crowd, if your
(22:16):
days are meant to always be great when something does come at you, you don't have the emotional
flexibility to deal with it.
And these folks really fall off their pedestal.
So ultimately, you know, if you find that all you're doing is kind of living through
escape, you know, chasing the next fun adventure, like then maybe you want to integrate some
(22:39):
things that are hard, like what is that challenge, right?
Oftentimes when people get hung up on that, like, what are you saying?
Am I supposed to have fun all the time?
It's like in the nineties when sleep deprivation was a huge problem and we were trying to get
folks to sleep more, right?
I mean, I think that's pretty well known now, fortunately, that if you're sleeping less
than five hours a day, ultimately, you're going to fall off a cliff and you're not going
(23:01):
to be productive.
Once we course corrected that, we're not like, Hey, you should sleep 24 hours a day because,
you know, things are going to be so much better.
More sleep is better.
That's not the issue here with fun either.
The issue is that we're so fun star that folks are, you know, rightfully have really poor
mental health and are unhappy, unfortunately.
(23:24):
And so the remedy for that is realizing that you have the agency and autonomy, at least
in some periods of your life.
Again, I like the hundred and six, eight hour framework because it's just short enough,
you know, where you can go, wait a second, there are a few things that I can do.
And let me kind of sit there for a second.
(23:45):
Like when someone's like, well, I just, you know, I wouldn't even know where to start.
It could be as simple as just reclaiming your lunch break.
You know, my background academically is in organizational psychology.
And we know it's that simple that the folks that are able to take a real break from their
work, you know, from the morning session to the afternoon session and use that to do something
(24:09):
that they want to do.
Let's say they're an introvert.
So they get engrossed, you know, in eating a good meal and reading a good book or they're
an extrovert.
So they walk down the street and find their friend and, you know, whether it's Esplanade
or whatever, you know, have a really enjoyable lunch.
When they show up the second half of their workday, they're able to do the hard things
(24:30):
instead of sitting, staring at their screen and just clearing their inbox.
So again, this isn't necessarily about, you know, how do I learn how to juggle?
It's about how do I find these micro moments of joy within my week so that I live a restorative
life and not something that's just, okay, if I get through this, I can get to the next
(24:50):
thing.
I really like the mental model of how can I change some of the things that I do from
I have to do this to I get to do this, even if it's the same thing, right?
With parenting, we are often able to make, you know, pretty good headway in that regard,
just reminding parents that you don't have to do everything through a sense of duty.
(25:13):
Like an example I often bring when I'm working with parents is, you know, so many parents
just bring their kids to the park and we'll sit on a bench, you know, and scroll through
Instagram, you know, thinking that they're essentially childcare.
It's like, yeah, that has been your habit, but why don't you ask your kid what he or
she wants to do with you that you guys both find enjoyable.
(25:37):
For my daughter and I, it was cooking classes, right?
Because I really wanted to learn to cook.
It was something I never had time for.
She was like, heck yeah, let's do this.
And you know, we started going to a cooking school, but that became too expensive.
So now we just do it through YouTube tutorials, which is completely free.
And so even if you're not a parent, it's like, how can you make these small sort of, you
(25:59):
know, mental shifts, even if it's doing something that you already do.
And so there's work that I love to cite in this area from Dr. Cassie Holmes out of UCLA.
She wrote a great book herself called The Happier Hour, and she just had folks go into
their weekend reminding themselves it's a vacation, you know, because so many of us habituate
her behavior that we're like, okay, well, the weekends for, you know, catching up on
(26:23):
my personal things.
And so what she found was that people didn't necessarily change their behavior, you know,
the things that they did.
It's not like they went off and had vacations or whatever, but just that reminder of like,
wait a second, this is my two days for renewal.
This is the time that I get to decide what I want to do was enough to bring them to Monday
(26:46):
with such a better attitude and so much more energy to it, kind of attack the challenges
that they had.
And so, you know, if you can make better choices about how you spend your time and integrate,
you know, opportunities for active leisure, if you have that type of privilege in your
life, great, because we know that we'll have, you know, a bigger impact.
But sometimes it's just about reframing what you already do or negotiating, you know, what
(27:11):
you do with the people that you love in a way where everyone finds it enjoyable.
Just going off of that to kind of close this out, if someone is just starting to maybe
want to incorporate more fun into their life, what advice would you offer to them?
Yeah, so it's really starting of being mindful how you spend your time, right?
(27:35):
Oftentimes I suggest there's something you can easily find online called the record play
model.
And it's a way to just look at how you're spending your time in four different ways.
And so, you know, there are these things that we refer to as microjoys, you know, just walking
your dog in nature, you know, playing with your kids, the copy date with your friend,
(27:56):
or do you have a few of those in your week because they're really easy to do.
And if you let your life get so busy that there are none of them in your schedule, it's a great
way to be like, okay, let me pre-commit to making sure that I just do one or two of these
things.
And that's all it takes, right?
You remind yourself like, oh, yeah, I am busy, but I can still add a couple of these things
(28:20):
that give me a smile that, you know, when I do have a hard day, I can look forward to
because I know I'm going to be able to see, you know, some of whom I really enjoy in a
couple of days.
The living quadrant are hard things that lead to betterment.
And so, as you look back at your schedule, if you don't have at least one of these things,
you know, you might want to ask yourself why, right?
(28:42):
Because most of us feel better when there's some type of opportunity for growth.
As I said before, I do advocate for hard things.
So there's this concept called type two fun, where what you're doing in the moment, you
wouldn't go, oh my goodness, this is fun.
You know, oftentimes this is endurance sport athletes like, you know, a rock climber, it's
(29:03):
kind of almost about to, you know, fall off the cliff.
But then when they get to the top, they're like, oh my gosh, that was so fun, right?
And so if there, you know, it could be a spiritual practice, it could be, you know, training
for some sort of sport, it could be, you know, starting a business, you know, something
that you're really passionate about.
If there are none of these things that you know are going to kind of, you know, be expansive
(29:26):
and light you up, you might want to ask yourself, why not?
And see if there's a way to incorporate those.
And so asking better questions about the really hard things in your life can be helpful.
And then the easiest low hanging fruit is what I call yielding activities.
And those are the things that we just do to pacify our time.
Oftentimes, you know, things like mindlessly scrolling social media or plopping down on
(29:49):
the couch and channel surfing.
So we, you know, I never villainize someone for watching their favorite show.
I mean, I especially, you know, if you're with your family, we know those things are
good use of the time.
But if you're kind of just trying to escape a really bad day habitually, right?
I mean, if you have a horrible day, you just want to forget about it.
(30:11):
Like, you know, you do you.
But if you're doing this as a, as kind of a chronic way to escape, escape stress, we
know that it never is restorative.
In fact, it really does lead to more stress because as you continue week after week of
not encoding any information that says, Hey, I'm having some fun in what I do, you'll look
(30:33):
back and go, where did the time go?
Right.
And, you know, there's a whole host of research, you know, that backs this up.
I think most people are familiar with Bronnie Ware's work, the five regrets of the dine.
And so, you know, making sure that there, those yielding activities where, you know,
I don't need to scroll social media for three hours or, you know, right now with the election
(30:55):
cycle.
I can get all the information I need about the election, you know, in 30 minutes, I
don't need to just get repetitive information for three hours.
How could I instead go connect with someone who's going to make me feel safe in an environment
that I'm going to enjoy after I get, you know, a dose of the information that I need like
(31:15):
in 30 minutes.
So that yielding category is, you know, I think most people can start by just looking,
you know, at the health meter on their phone and see how much time they spent on apps.
Almost, you know, seven, eight times out of 10, folks are so surprised when they're like,
wow, and sometimes it's not social media.
It's silly things like Slack or Gmail.
(31:36):
Like I wait, I spent 14 hours in my inbox.
Like that's not a good use of time.
My job is not sending emails.
And so then you can start to ask, again, better questions about how am I spending this time
and could I potentially do something else, you know, by optimizing that way.
And so it goes back again by not just looking at your calendar through the lens of productivity,
(32:01):
but also about how could I enjoy some of the things that I'm doing on my calendar.
Yeah, it makes me think about just the power of choice and like taking control of your
own life and making better choices and not necessarily feeling like happiness is kind
of, you know, given to you on a silver platter, but actually taking the time to figure out
how you can make your life more enjoyable.
(32:24):
It makes perfect sense.
Yeah.
And so two quick behavioral science concepts that are just, you know, premeditation and
pre-commitment.
I mean, part of the issue is, you know, especially as we get older, we just habituate our lives
because it's easy, right?
We just let one week roll into the next.
And so I guess kind of a second strategy to often your listeners is it's as simple as
(32:48):
just writing down a list of things that you want to do because once you identify them,
right, they're there.
And you know, some people say they really benefit from keeping that list, you know,
either on their mirror or by a desk because you're like, okay, wait a second, four weeks
have now gone by and I haven't done one of these things like I need to do it.
And so that brings up the second concept, which is pre-commitment.
(33:09):
I mean, if it's something that you want to do, let's say, you know, it's a comedy show
or whatever, just buy the ticket and you're going to go.
If it's, you know, an activity that you want to do with a friend, ask your friend, you
know, commit to the date, put on the calendar and you're going to do it.
That's just the power of our calendars.
(33:29):
I mean, we are slaves to them when it comes to work, right?
So why not, you know, also use them as a tool for our own enjoyment?
And so, you know, that's one of the benefits of a calendar.
Once an activity, you know, shows up there, it's kind of a mutable, right?
We end up doing it.
And so, you know, being premeditated about what you want to do, but then pre-committing
(33:51):
to it means that these things will actually happen.
Yeah, exactly.
I love that.
The power of the calendar.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
Because it is very powerful and seeing a reminder or just having that block of time kind of set
aside in your mind.
It's just, you know, that's what I need to do and it's, you're more likely to do the
fun things for sure.
(34:12):
And it's a tool of resilience.
We know that.
So once it's on your calendar, if you're having a really terrible day, my academic work has
been a lot with physicians.
And so, you know, they can have really hard consecutive days, but if they know they have
a date with their partner, you know, on Saturday, they can put their mind there.
Again, if those don't exist on your calendar, then what they have to look forward to is
(34:37):
another week of, you know, the same sort of agonizing events that they've had in the OR.
So having, again, you know, these microjoys or these moments by your own design, remind
yourself that, you know, at least part of the time you have the agency and the autonomy
to create joyful moments, even if, you know, a lot of the time that you spend, you know,
(35:01):
isn't as enjoyable.
And again, because we're not talking about happiness, because we're not talking about
optimizing some long-term, you know, kind of ambiguous goal, we can start to do this immediately.
Fun is action-oriented, right?
Where, again, happiness tends to be this amorphous thing that we're like, how do I arrive?
(35:21):
Where you can arrive at fun as soon as you have a free day.
The quote for today is directly from Dr. Mike Rucker's book, The Fun Habit.
He says, Don't defer fun until the world's problems are solved, because they never will
be.
We each have the responsibility to create space for renewal, celebration, connection, and
(35:43):
joy for ourselves and even more importantly, for each other.
Thank you so much for listening.
I truly hope that you enjoyed this episode.
And special thank you to Dr. Mike Rucker for speaking with me about his amazing book and
for teaching us all how to have more fun.
If you're interested in The Fun Habit, I will link the book and Dr. Mike Rucker's website
(36:05):
in the show notes.
I'll catch you next time.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to click the follow button so you don't miss future
episodes.
And if you see another one on the list that you think looks interesting, take a listen
or just download it for later.
I'll see you next time.
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