If I could give you ONE GIFT that would have the greatest impact on your happiness, income and ability to create change in the world it would be:
PLAY.
I would sprinkle the fairy dust of play over your every action and relationship. I’d add a dash to your heaviest thoughts so you’d have the freedom to laugh your way through them.
I am blessed to speak with amazing coaches, healers and world-changing entrepreneurs almost every day, and the biggest thing holding them back is taking it all so damn seriously.
We need to lighten the eff up, people.
When you’re stuck in your head and tangled in knots, piling on the pressure of deadlines, “stretching your comfort zone” and getting things done and shoulds and have tos…
Does the pressure of all that make it easier to create?
Can you see creative possibilities more clearly from that place?
Nope. Me, neither!
The secret of being playful is that it allows us to do lots of things…because we’re not “really” doing anything at all. We’re just playing.
The object of play is pure amusement and whimsy. Just because.
We can also be play-full in anything we choose to do, even the practical and mundane. Even in — yes, I’m going to say it! — MARKETING your business.
When you play, you’ll experiment, explore and discover the path forward, without expectation.
You enjoy yourself a hell of a lot more, and what you enjoy, you tend to do more.
The more actions you take over time, the more results you tend to get.
Play exponentializes your impact and results…because you’re not “doing” (forcing, pushing or figuring out) anything at all.
You can play your way into services and offers you’re beyond excited to share.
You can play your way into your message of deep purpose and transformation that speaks to your soulmate clients.
Your play can be infused with both joy and impact.
It may start as a tactic, tricking yourself into scheduling “playtime” on your calendar. Go ahead!
Once you remember the taste of playful creation, you’ll be back for more.
Play is your natural creative state.
You were born a curious, inquisitive, evolving ball of wonder.
You’re still what you’ve always been.
Now is the time to meet your playful self again, and it begins in this moment.
What is “playful” like to you?
When do you play?
(Dogs and kids are faithful companions for drawing it out, but it might be anywhere.)
If you were to leave a playful response to this post — hint, hint — what would it be?
Once you’ve got the flavor of play, notice where it leads you.
What can you do to FEED it?
Drop the practicality and let play take the lead for a second. As powerful as this can be for your business, play doesn’t have an agenda, and you’ll suck the life out of it if you try to play “productively.”
(Can you imagine a three year-old demanding better metrics and tangible outcomes from his time in the sandbox?)
Your creative play is beckoning right now, as it was for one of my client-playmates:
She’d just given me a looooooooooong exposition about the frustrations she’d been having with making money from her business, when her face lit up and she said:
“Oh! The weirdest thing has been happening, Stephanie. It has nothing to do with my business, but remind me to tell you later.”
Do you think I let that juicy nugget get away?
Of course, I didn’t. I could smell FUN all over it. 🙂
“Tell me now!”
She went on to describe a mystical experience of story whispered in her ear during meditation, an epic story that unfolded each time she got quiet.
When I asked if she might like to write the story, she balked.
She wasn’t a writer, and shouldn’t she be spending time building her business?
“Would you like to find out how the story goes?” I asked.
She said yes. And…
She began writing a story and it lit her on fire with the telling. Characters and worlds revealed themselves, leaving her awestruck at what emerged.
While it had “nothing to do with business,” it had everything to do with feeling ALIVE.
Something inside her was waking up.
Within a few months, she was making money and finding opportunities for creative expression all over her life…without even trying.
Not through HARD WORK but through PLAYFUL EXPLORATION.
You get to choose.
I’ve made it my (deeply impactful and thoroughly playful) mission to get paid to play, and to help others do the same.
Would you like to join me?
Yours in creative play,
Steph
