How to Be a Fun Person

Are you someone who feels like you’re not having enough fun in your life? If so, I can relate. I used to have a pretty boring life and I was always searching for the fun outside of me. And then, I discovered the secret to having more fun. And that is to be a fun person.

So, today’s episode is actually a really special one because I’m going to take you behind the scenes of a class that I taught within the School of Self-Image membership. And it’s all around how to be a fun person. So, let’s dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

What is happening, my friends? I have something I want to share with you. It’s like a proud momma moment. My daughter gave me such a big compliment the other day. She said, “Mom, you’re the most fun person to be around.”

In fact, I was out to dinner with a couple friend of ours and, all of a sudden, my daughter and her friends walk in, and she told me, “Yeah, I found you on Find a Friend and I just tracked you down because we wanted to hang out.

I love that as a mom. I love knowing that I have the kind of energy that attracts people who want to have fun. But it hasn’t always come naturally to me. And many times, people will ask me, “How do you have more fun?” And they often want me to tell them things that they can do to have more fun. But that is not how to have more fun.

Do you want to know the secret to having more fun? It’s to be a fun person. You embody the fun. As I often say, the party lives within you, which means I can have fun in almost any place. And that’s because I have created a fun mindset. I’ve become a fun person.

So, I have a special episode for you today. I’m going to take you behind the scenes of a class that I taught within the School of Self-Image because it’s so good for those of you who are missing out on the fun and you’re wondering, where is it?

The secret is, it’s within you. And the more that you embody that fun energy, you’re going to have people tracking you down on Find a Friend wanting to hang out. It might be your kids, so be careful, I warned you. But I hope you enjoy today’s episode.

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So, today is all about a fun mindset. I love this quote by Mary Oliver where she says, “Are you breathing a little and calling it a life?” That was me for over a decade, when I was a young momma working nights in the ICU, when I was overweight and just struggling.

I can honestly say then, I didn’t realize at the time, but I was having a hard time catching my breath. I wasn’t breathing deeply, literally, and metaphorically. And I was trying to call it a life. But now I realize, there is so much more available to all of us, and fun is one of the answers. And that’s why I’m excited to dedicate this entire month to this topic.

So, what if fun is the answer to a lot of your questions? Do any of you ask yourself, “How do I get more done? How do I be more productive? How do I make more friends? How do I spice up my marriage? How can I be a better parent? How can I handle stress better? How can I live a more meaningful life?”

Fun, I think, is the answer. And there are many studies to show the benefits of having fun, such as you’re more creative. I know for me, I used to sit at my desk, and I would try to figure out answers to obstacles and challenges with a stressed-out brain.

And who was it said – maybe it was Einstein that says, “You can’t find solutions with the same brain that created the problem,” something like that. And that’s why, for me, getting outside, doing something fun, or bringing an element of fun into my work actually helps me come up with better and more creative ideas, more productive.

Why is that? Because when you’re stressed and you’re trying to get more done, there is so much resistance there. And it’s why one of my favorite mantras is, “There is no hurry.” And a lot of you want to argue with me about that. You’re like, “But there is a deadline, Tonya, I have to get it done.”

But what I want you all to understand, these are optional thoughts. Telling yourself there’s a hurry, stressing yourself out is just causing you to feel more anxiety, more stress. Which, if you look at your actions when you’re feeling anxious and stressed, they’re not productive.

I know for me, when I’m feeling anxious and stressed, I want to crawl into a hole. I want to procrastinate. I get less done. But the moment I bring an element of fun and play into whatever I’ trying to produce, the resistance starts to lessen and there’s more flow, which is why fun is one of the answers.

Less stress, better relationships – I mean, do your kids want to be around a stressed-out mom who’s just trying to get things done all the time. Or maybe your partner, your husband, your spouse, what about your family and friends? We love to be around fun people. It’s magnetic. So, it leads actually to better relationships. And even more importantly, it leads to a better relationship with yourself.

More energy – fun is an elevated energy, right? When you’re in that energy of fun, notice how you feel. It’s elevated. And just by being in fun environments, around fun people, with fun thoughts in your head, you will notice that your energy is more elevated. You carry yourself differently. You have more energy to give, more youthful.

If you talk to people who are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, and you ask them, “Hey, what’s the secret to growing old gracefully or powerfully?” Many of them will tell you, “Never stop playing.”

And how do I know this? I was a critical care nurse for over 15 years actually, and that’s one of the things they would always tell me, “Never stop playing. Never forget how to be a kid.” So, it makes you more youthful. People that are having fun, just their face, everything, they just emanate youth, okay.

And then, a better love life. When you are fun in your relationships, in the bedroom, it just spices things up. So, these are just a few of the benefits to having fun.

And this was from Emma Seppala, she’s a Stanford University Happiness Expert and she says, “If we focus on boosting fun and happiness in our lives, even in little ways, research shows that we can end up more productive, charismatic, energetic, and innovative. And who doesn’t want that?

So, there are two ways to think about fun. A lot of you think about fun as a noun, meaning it’s something outside of you that you engage with. It’s described as an enjoyable or amusing time, like, “She is going to go have some fun.”

And it is true that we can engage with fun things outside of us. I love doing that. It’s why I love going dancing. It’s why I went to go see Bocelli last weekend. It’s why I love to travel. It is fun for me.

But then, there’s our day-to-day lives. And what I want to focus on, especially in this class, is the other way to think about fun, which is an adjective. And to me, this is a powerful way to think about fun because it’s not something you have to search for. It is something you become.

So, when you think of fun as an adjective, it’s providing entertainment, amusement, or enjoyment. "She is a fun woman to be around." This means that it's an emotion that is experienced.

The person experiences it outside of you if there’s a person in your vicinity, possibly, depending on their thoughts. But you experience it within your body. And the thing is, when it comes to fun being an emotion, most people, we think of it as an emotion. But when I ask people, how do you want to feel, rarely do people say, “I want to feel fun.”

They’ll tell me they want to go have fun. But they never say to me – I don’t think I’ve ever coached a woman that says, “I want to feel fun.” Which is fascinating because I feel like we all do. But what they will describe to me is that they want to feel pleasure, entertained, happiness, excitement, joy, I put pleasure again, it’s very important, amusement.

They’ll tell me things like that. So, often there are other emotions that we associate with fun. So, what does this mean? Fun is created and experienced in the mind first, okay.

This explains, you all, why there was a time where I could be in the most fun place ever – I remember being in New York City on New Year’s Eve. Everyone, it seemed to me, was having so much fun. But I wasn’t.

Why? Because fun is not created outside of you. It’s not created by your circumstance. Fun is something you experience based on your thoughts. And at that time in my life, my thoughts weren’t good.

So, you could put me in the most fun, quote unquote, places, but I still wasn’t a fun woman. And it wasn’t until I began to change my thoughts that now, I feel like I am a master at having fun. But it took shedding limiting beliefs, letting go of beliefs that were holding me back, and all of a sudden, up underneath all of that, there I was, a fun woman.

So, I want you all to know, fun is not created outside of you. Things outside of you aren’t fun. You create the fun based on your thoughts. Now, yes, in future classes this month, I’m going to be talking about finding your flavor of fun, bringing the fun. But for this class, we are just talking about our minds and creating a fun mindset.

So, here’s the good news. This means you don’t have to change your life to start having more fun. Because a lot of times, that’s what we think, right? We think, “Oh, I need to go to this place. I need to go find new friends. I need to change my whole life in order to have fun.” And that’s the kind of mentality that keeps us stuck.

When you change, the world outside of you starts to change as well. So, you simply need to start shifting your perspective, your thoughts, and your beliefs. And as you elevate your self-image to include more fun, the world will begin to mirror it back to you. Because however you see yourself, you’re always looking for evidence to prove that true.

And I think that’s why I think I’m so fun now, because now, I’m always looking at how I’m fun. And there’s always evidence for it.

Now, there was a time when I didn’t think I was fun, so I saw no evidence of it anywhere. But as I begin to look for evidence – and in the beginning, it was small little things. Maybe I made one person laugh that day. I was like, “Look at me, how funny I am.”

But over time, I’ve collected evidence to prove my self-image true, which is, I’m a fun woman. So, in other words, as you become fun, more fun opportunities will show up for you. And I have so much evidence of this.

I am so blown away. I used to have a hard time making friends. I used to be socially awkward. And it was all because of low self-esteem, honestly.

But now, I mean, right before I got on our call, I got a text from this guy I met here in Denver, lovely guy, and he wants to meet for a glass of wine and talk business. I got an invite to a party next weekend. I’m like, this was never my life, but I honestly believe that the reason why I’m attracting these opportunities and these invites and these friendships into my life is that I stopped waiting for people to bring the fun and I started being the fun. And now, people want to hang out with me.

And that’s what you’re going to notice as well. Your kids will want to hang out with you more. Your partner will enjoy being around you more, your coworkers. People are attracted to fun people.

And so, I need to remind you all that the part lives within you. It always has. But maybe, you turn the lights out. And we’re going to turn the lights back on this month.

So, I think in order for you to create a fun mindset, you first need to understand, what are the major fun blocks that we have against having fun? And I’ve read a lot on this topic, but I have taken most of the content for this call from experiences and things that I’ve heard you all tell me, that I used to tell myself, that I’ve had family and friends tell me.

So, let’s look at the first fun block. The brain wants to protect itself from harm. And believe it or not, if you’re not accustomed to having fun, your brain will try to tell you that it’s dangerous. How many of you don’t feel that it’s safe to have fun? That you need to be serious and practical and have that puritanical work ethic in order to be successful? That’s what we’re taught and we’re going to talk about that in a second.

But anything that’s outside of your current familiar experience and state of being is often deemed as a threat to your brain. Not because it is, just because the brain doesn’t know what that’s going to entail. It doesn’t know what to expect. The brain, even if you’re in a situation that you don’t want to be in, it’s familiar. And the brain will try to keep you there.

Not because the brain’s trying to hurt you. It’s actually trying to keep you safe. But one of the ways it does that, when it comes to fun, is it will tell you it’s not safe to have fun. It’s irresponsible. It’s not practical. You can do it later.

So, I just want you all to be aware that this is just one of the brain’s sneaky tricks to keep you where you are. We’re going to work through that this month. And the other one is fun-blocking beliefs. And I want us all to consider that most of the beliefs that we have are not of our own making, unless you have taken full accountability for your self-image, and you’ve been doing this work for a while.

Most of the beliefs, that we have, have been passed down from those before us. And if we don’t question them, we will continue to perpetuate evidence to prove them true until it seems like it’s reality. It’s just what it is. But it’s just a belief that you’ve had for a long time that now you’ve gathered a lot of evidence for and you’re like, “See, it’s completely true. Look at all of this evidence from my past.”

But I want you to be looking from your future at the fun, life-loving, energetic version of you. What does she believe about fun? She knows it’s completely safe. Not only is it completely safe, it is completely necessary to live a well-lived life.

And I was thinking about this earlier. I was thinking about my grandmother. And I feel like we all have grandmothers, maybe great grandmothers, grandfathers, grandparents that we can understand their mentality. They grew up during the great depression. Things were a lot less convenient back then for them.

And I’m sure that they would have been able to justify maybe their beliefs around working hard and fun can come later. But we’re in such a different era where we have more conveniences, we have technology, the work structure has changed. To me, we’re in a day and time, even with a pandemic, that we are more able to have fun than ever before.

And I feel like it’s such a gift that we give to our ancestors, to celebrate them and to thank them for all of the sacrifices that they’ve made that allowed us to have this life.

So, I want you to think about, what are your beliefs around fun that make it hard for you to actually consider it, to engage with it, to become it. And some of them are, “I need to be serious and work hard.” I know for me, growing up in a Pentecostal Holiness Church, having too much fun was a sin. It was indulgence. And there were certain things that I thought were so fun that I wasn’t allowed to do, like dancing and going to the movies and going to the bowling alley, going to the pool, and swimming with mixed company, I wasn’t allowed to do.

And yet, in my heart, I was like, “Oh my god, that seems like so much fun.” But I was told it was a sin. And those little things add up and can make it really hard for someone to have full expressed fun.

But once you recognize it and once you have the awareness, then you can be like, “Oh, is this what I want to believe? Is this a thought that serves me if I want to have more fun?” And I know everyone on this call wants to have more fun. I’m already having the time of my life and I want to have more fun because, why not? This is our one life.

Okay, another block to having more fun – I hear this a lot – is, “I don’t have enough time.” And the only reason why you would use this as an excuse to block you from fun is if you see fun as a noun. It’s something that you have to go out there and do.

But what I want you all to understand is that fun isn’t an occurrence. It’s a state of being. It’s who you get to be. And time is never the issue because fun, again, is a state of mind that you can bring into any experience.

Reason number four. This is a big one. We begin to mirror our not-so-fun surroundings. If you’re not mindful, you’ll take on the energy of those around you. And I coach a lot of you on this. You’ll tell me how your kids are misbehaving, how your husband is just boring or complains all the time, or your coworkers.

You can’t let other people be responsible for your fun. If you’re surrounded by serious and dull people, you’re going to automatically want to mirror their same beliefs and emotions. And the reason being, again, the brain likes to be lazy. It doesn’t want to work that hard. And when you’re around that kind of environment, you have to be more deliberate with your thinking.

But the result of doing that work is priceless. You get really good at doing this work. And then, what you may notice is that the people around you are going to start to mirror you instead.

Reason number five – I hear this one a lot. I call it fun confusion. Maybe you’ve been out of touch with your fun side for a while and your brain wants to convince you that you don’t know what it’s like to have fun. Why? Because remember, the brain wants to keep you in a familiar state. So, this is another one of its sneaky tricks, is to convince you that you’re confused about what is fun for you and you don’t know what fun feels like. This is never, ever an excuse. It’s time to rediscover and explore that fun side of you again, okay.

Reason number six. This is what happened to me. I mean, all of these added up to me being a not-so-fun person. But I call this life chipping, and I think a lot of you can relate to this. All of us, at one time, were little children. And guess what children are really good at? Playing and having fun.

It’s our natural state of being. But then, life starts to chip away at you. Little hurts, little disappointments. Maybe in the moment, it doesn’t seem like such a big thing. But then, you add in what I call adult admin, adulting, and all of the obligations that go along with that. And all of a sudden, one day, you look in the mirror and you realize that you’ve forgotten how to have fun.

You’re like, “Who am I? What happened to that life-loving, confident, playful little girl that I used to be?” And now, not only have you forgotten how to have fun. But now, it seems irresponsible to do so now because of all of those beliefs that you have.

So, the good news here is you don’t need to learn how to have more fun. You simply need to remember how to have more fun and get acquainted with that fun part of you again.

We all know how to be fun and to have fun. And if you look into your past, you’ll find some evidence, at some point in your life, there was a version of you that just was fun. And so, it’s time to get to know that version of you again. So, no more fun excuses. It’s time to let it all go and rediscover fun for you again.

Fun is a decision and a commitment. It’s a choice. It’s a mindset. And when you start to become a fun woman, you start attracting more fun into your life.

And I don’t know if you all remember, back in 2007, Randy Pausch, he was a professor. I can’t remember what university he taught at. But he delivered what they called the Last Lecture. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and he was given three to six months to live. And this was something that he said.

He was like, “I’m going to keep having fun every day I have left. You just have to decide whether you’re a Tigger or an Eeyore.” I want to be a Tigger. The world needs more Tiggers.

And then Martha Beck – I love this quote too. She was like, “Having fun is not a diversion from a successful life. It’s the pathway to it.” And I 100% agree with that because if you think about what you want, and if you think about the future version of you, what is the end result?

She’s probably having fun. She’s enjoying her life. And the good news is you don’t have to wait for the goal, the result, to start having fun. And if you want to be a match for that future, you have to start being that woman now.

So let’s talk about three ways to create a fun mindset. Who’s ready? So the first thing I want you all to do, if you’re in a place of, “I just don’t know what it’s like to have fun,” or, “I don’t know what that version of me is,” we all have a fun friend, or someone fun in our life.

It might not even be someone that you are friends with in real life. Maybe it’s someone you’re friends with on TV, or on a podcast. I have many friends that I’ve never met before. But there’s something about their personality that’s just magnetic, I’m just drawn to them.

So we’re going to call this a fun friend case study. Think about a person that you have fun around. What qualities do they possess? What makes them fun? And I want you to write them all down.

So I was thinking, I have many fun friends but there’s one in particular that I spend a lot of time with, and we have so much fun together. And so I really started to think about what is it about her that is just so fun, and I just wrote a list of all of the things about her.

One of the things I love about her, she’s very open-minded. And open-minded people tend to have more fun in life. They’re not easily offended, they don’t reject ideas. They’re like, “Tell me more. I want to know all about it,” even if they don’t agree with you. They’re not closed off. They’re open. And that’s one thing that she possesses, which is why it’s so fun to be around her.

She’s always a yes. I’ll call her up and I’ll be like, “Hey, I just booked tickets to Bocelli, you want to come?” She’s like, “Yes, I’m bringing two girlfriends.” I’m like, “Great, let’s go.” And there’s something to that, it’s like that adventurous spirit that is fun to be around.

That’s the next one. She’s adventurous, loves new experiences. She laughs a lot. All the time. She’s just full of laughter. She finds humor in almost everything. She and I both were going through a really difficult time back in 2020 and literally, we were together, and we were crying and laughing at the same time.

Because we were finding humor in the struggle of life. We were finding humor in our sadness. I know it sounds crazy, but I think that’s the secret to joie de vivre. Joie de vivre is the joy of living and part of living is the sadness, the disappointments, the struggles, the humanness of our lives.

Equally, the humanness of the joy, and the ups, and all of the amazingness. And a lot of times we only want to find humor when it’s good. But the secret is can you find humor in life when it is a mess. That’s when you can start to have fun with life. And she does that.

Not easily offended, she dreams big. It’s so much fun to be around big dreamers because then they encourage you to go after your big dreams. You can bring any idea to them, they’re like, “Let’s do it.” It’s a little crazy, but I think we can do it.

And that’s the kind of energy that makes it so much fun. She loves to play games, she’s very competitive, I love competitive people. I’m very competitive. I have a hard time playing games with someone who’s not competitive because then it’s no fun for me.

Part of the fun is the angst and the tension, and it’s nothing about the other person. It’s like, can I win at this game? And so for me, may not be for you, but that is a quality of my fun friend. Loves learning. I think learning can be so much fun. She’s very encouraging, very supportive, loves to dance, and she enjoys travel.

So when you do this, I want you to think about are you this person? Which of these qualities do you already possess? And which of these qualities do you want to cultivate more of within yourself? And I would actually encourage you to get very specific and maybe focus on just one quality that you want to practice this month.

So maybe, let’s go back to my list. If I were looking at this, I feel like I’m so many of these things, which is why we’re a great match. The one that I would focus on though is always a yes. There are many times where I wanted to say yes but my brain gets involved and I’m like, “That’s not really a good idea right now,” trying to justify stepping out of my comfort zone.

And I am doing so much better at this. I say yes to almost everything, but I did notice even last week, I was invited to do something, and I wanted to, but I said no to it. And I was like, huh, why was that? It was because my brain convinced me that it wasn’t a good idea. But now that I’m thinking about it, I should totally have said yes to it.

So that’s one that I would personally work on. Always a yes. And there needs to be a disclaimer here. If it’s a true yes. Because there are some times I say no and it’s a good no. It’s like, no, this isn't a good thing. But sometimes I say no and it’s actually something that I want to do.

So find one quality that you want to work on cultivating. Okay, now we’re going to look at fun thoughts. And what I want you to do is to think about an area of your life where you’re not having a lot of fun. Maybe it’s in your work, maybe it’s in your relationship, maybe it’s with your finances, maybe it’s with your health. Just pick one area where you’re not having fun.

And then what I want you to do is to write down all of your thoughts and beliefs that you have in this area. And I want you to notice two things. This is often what happens. First, notice the thoughts taking you away from fun. And then I also want you to pay attention, how many of those thoughts are focused on a certain outcome versus the journey?

A lot of times, we have thoughts about getting there. And because we’re not there yet, we add so much drama and resistance to the journey, versus focusing on how can I make the journey fun? There’s never going to be a there. You may hit a goal but then you’re going to set a new one. You’re going to want to go to the next thing.

So if you’re always delaying your gratification and your joy and your fun until you’ve hit a goal, you’re missing out. And even that, the best way to reach your goal is to be a match for the outcome that you are seeking. So it’s so much more productive and so much more useful to have fun along the way.

Just like in my business, we’ll be at team meetings and I’m like, if it’s not fun, what are we doing? I don’t want to do things that aren’t fun. I either, A, don’t do them, or B, if I want to do them and the way we’re approaching it isn’t fun, then the question becomes how can I make this fun?

So just notice your thoughts. And then I want you - we’ll get to the second part, but these are some examples. So this was in the area of business, a woman that I coached around this topic. And these were some of her thoughts about her business.

“I’m so far behind. No one is interested in my offer. I’m tired of hustling. I’m not making enough money. My business is so draining.” I’m like, no wonder you’re not having fun in your business. I’m not having fun in your business and I’m not even running your business.

So what we want to do is we want to change the business in order to have more fun, but then we end up hustling and working even harder, versus how am I going to change my thoughts so that I experience my business in a new and fun way?

So these were some of the thoughts that she came up with. “I’m exactly where I need to be. I’m going to have fun creating my offers. I am grateful I get to do this work. I’m so thankful for the money my business is generating, and excited to earn more. I love my business.”

This was in the area of work, a woman that I coached around. And these were her not-so-fun thoughts about her work. “My coworkers are always complaining.” Notice how she's complaining about their complaining. It’s interesting, right?

“My boss doesn’t recognize all that I do. My job doesn’t allow me to be creative. No one appreciates what I do. I’m stuck in a soul-sucking job.” Would you have fun at your job if these were your thoughts? Now, what we want to do is we want to go switch jobs, but if you're not mindful, you’ll take these same thoughts with you and create a not-so-fun experience in the next job.

Because fun isn’t outside of you. It’s not your job’s job to give you fun. You get to bring fun to your job, which we’re going to talk about in a future class. But just notice the thoughts around her work.

Now, let’s look at what she came up with. “My coworkers are fascinating.” It was very difficult for her to go to, “I love my coworkers,” because she doesn't right now. Her brain won’t let her jump that far. But she can find them fascinating, and it’s better than saying, “My coworkers are always complaining.”

“I am proud of what I do.” Notice, instead of needing her boss to be proud, she gets to be proud of herself. “I am always looking for creative ways to work.” We can be creative no matter what our job is. Just living is a creative act. You get to decide how you do your job, how you show up in your job. You get to decide the creative ways you approach your work.

So she came up with that. “I appreciate what I do. I’m grateful that I have a job that pays me.” Notice how same work, same job, but your thoughts can be so much different, creating a very different experience. Both of these clients ended up creating phenomenal results.

One ended up hitting six figures in her business, and this particular woman that I coached around her work, she ended up getting a promotion six months after doing this work. Why? Because she showed up differently.

And again, the world will always mirror back to you what you believe about yourself. She started to see herself as a fun woman in her work and all of a sudden, the relationships with her coworkers started to shift, she started not depending on everybody else’s accolades, she gave them to herself, which built her confidence. Six months later, she got a promotion. That is the power of having fun.

And then I also want you all to ask fun-provoking questions. The brain will often make things harder, more serious, and more boring than it really is. It’s true. So ask fun-provoking questions to spark ideas for more play and more ease and more pleasure, more amusement, more joy because your brain is always going to seek to answer the questions that you ask of it.

And a lot of you are asking terrible questions. Why can’t I have more fun? Why is this so hard? Why can’t I get ahead? What's wrong with me? And when you ask those kinds of questions, the brain’s going to tell you all of the reasons why you are those things and it’s hard and why you’re not having fun.

We want to ask questions that grow you, that give you the answers that you’re actually seeking. So here’s some of my favorite fun questions. Number one, how could I make this more fun?

When I’m sitting down to pay the bills, I have fun doing it. Why? Because I put on music, I’m in a state of gratitude, I’m going to bring the fun. When I’m cooking dinner, when I’m doing the dishes, when I’m cleaning the house, I do it in a spirit of fun because I get to bring the party with me no matter what I’m doing, where I’m going, and who I’m with.

So how can I make this fun? Not how can the world bring me fun, how can I make this fun? And notice what ideas come up for you. How can I make this easier? A lot of times it’s not fun because we’ve complicated it so much. And we believe things have to be complicated and hard and we have to work a lot at it in order for it to be successful.

And I have done this. I have done this in my business. And I often tell my team, I’m like, “I know I’m making this way more complicated than it needs to be. Let’s find an easier way to do this.” So just by asking that question, now you’re asking your brain to look for better solutions.

What is funny about this? I love this question. This forces you to find the humor, and you can find humor in everything. It’s why comedy is so effective because it takes real-life issues and pokes fun at it where we can all come together over something that seems so serious and laugh about it.

So what is funny about this? I love this question when my brain is convincing me that the world is ending and I’m going to either die, be homeless, be alone, it always takes me to the worst-case scenario.

And even sometimes, just allowing my brain to go to the worst-case scenario is quite funny. I’m like, “Really brain? You are very dramatic.” And I can find humor even in just visiting the worst-case scenario. But begin to look for the humor, especially when life seems the most challenging because that’s when you need to release a little stress, you need to release the resistance, and finding humor is one of the beautiful ways to do that.

What’s fun about this? This is a great question when you’re doing something that seems like it’s not fun. Let your brain come up with ways to show you that, hey, maybe this is fun. You just don’t allow yourself to experience it, or you don’t allow yourself to see how this could be fun because you have so many blocks against it.

And then I love this one. What if this was just a game? Whether you’re trying to find the love of your life, grow your business, lose weight, change jobs, move to a new city, whatever, what if you approached it like a game?

Because when we’re playing games, we’re having fun. But we make things so serious and so catastrophic that we can’t approach things that could be playful as such. So just asking yourself that question, what if this was just a game? How would I approach it differently? How would I think differently about it? How would I feel differently about it?

So these are some of my favorite fun questions to ask to get that fun energy going again. And then other fun ideas - and we’re going to talk more about outer fun, like how to bring the fun, how to find fun things, like your flavor of fun.

But these are just some ideas that I want to give you to start practicing, playing around with, and again, fun is very subjective. These are things that are fun to me. Try them on. But watch more comedy.

Some of you tell me, “I don’t like comedy.” But I find that there are different flavors of comedy. Maybe you just haven’t found your particular style yet. But it’s so good to laugh. I can't remember the study, but it talks about how often children laugh in a day, and it’s like, a crazy fun amount. I want to say it’s something like 10,000 a day. Maybe not.

But the point is when they studied how often adults laugh in a day, it was like, less than a handful. It was such a dramatic difference. And I feel like we come into this world in our natural state of being fully expressed, and then little by little, life starts to chip away at that.

So one of the things I want us doing is laughing more because laughter is so therapeutic. They even have laughing classes. I went to this resort in Mexico one time, and they had a laughing class, and I’m like, okay, I got to go check this out.

And literally, you get into a room with people, and nothing is happening, and one person starts laughing. And then another person starts laughing, and before you know it, it’s like it’s contagious. All of a sudden, I’m laughing. I don’t even know what I’m laughing at, but I do remember leaving that class just feeling lighter.

It’s like the laughter just released something for me. Listen to upbeat music. I have music playing all of the time and yes, that’s something outside of me, however, when I’m listening to it, it’s really interesting how my thoughts are happier, my thoughts are lighter.

Because our surroundings can change how we think because we start to think differently based on where we place ourselves. So play upbeat music. Hang out with fun people.

And again, if you don’t have any fun friends, make that a commitment to yourself. But in the meantime, find fun comedians, find fun actors, find fun podcasters. Find people that you can at least step into their world, even if from a distance who just bring that energy into your life.

Dance more. I want us to be women who have fun in our bodies. Our bodies are here for us to enjoy, and for me, dancing is a way for me to honor my body, get into my body, experience my body, and have fun in my body.

Laugh for no reason, and look for a little bit of comedy in everything. And really do this. I remember I was at my grandmother’s funeral. She lived a beautiful life. And me and my cousins literally laughed during the whole funeral.

We were sad, and God, we miss her to this day, but she lived such an incredible life, and I can’t remember what happened. I think it was the minister said something ridiculous and we all just started giggling at my grandmother’s funeral, and it’s one of my favorite moments ever.

Because to me, it was just such a celebration of her spirit. Because life is always going to be part struggle, part amazing. And if we only honor the amazing parts, we’re missing out on finding the humor and the beauty in the not so amazing parts.

I want us to be women that just embrace it all. And having more fun in your life will force you to do that. And then on the other side of that, you’ll get to experience what it really means to live with joie de vivre.

So I want to remind you that the women of the School of Self-Image cultivate a fun mindset. We are women who don’t wait for others to create our fun. Never. That’s never an option because we might be waiting a long time. We create our fun.

We don't wait for things outside of us to change to have fun. We start bringing the fun into our lives, which we’re going to talk about in our next class. And then we always make fun a priority.

It’s not something that we put on the back burner until one day. It’s not something we schedule in. It is something that we are. And as we embody it more and more, we start to notice that fun is reflected back to us. That is the power of a fun mindset.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.