How to Become Playful and Improve Your Well-Being and Relationships.

Many think playfulness is the same as being funny, but that’s not necessarily true.

Playfulness is more than just telling jokes, and it certainly doesn’t require us to be comedians or clowns doing our best to make people laugh.

Playfulness is simply a lighthearted approach to a situation. And it can have significant positive effects on both our well-being and relationships. 

You see, research shows that playfulness has numerous psychological benefits. 

When you embrace playfulness, you give yourself permission to be creative, spontaneous, and joyful. And these qualities can help you feel more confident in your ability to interact with others.

It also boosts mood and reduces stress by activating the reward centers in your brain. This leads to feelings of pleasure and satisfaction, which can help you enjoy social situations more.

And playfulness isn't just good for your mental health—it's also a powerful tool for strengthening your relationships with others. 

When you share moments of playfulness with someone - whether through friendly competition, sharing fun stories or observations, a silly joke, or whatever else fits your style of playfulness - you create a sense of shared joy and positivity. 

This tends to increase your mutual trust and affection, which, in turn, tends to deepen the relationship.

After all, who doesn’t want to spend more time with someone they have fun and share laughs with?

How to learn to be playful.

So, how can you incorporate more playfulness into your daily life? 

The first step is to make sure you give yourself permission to let loose and not take yourself too seriously.

Second, get into the habit of looking for opportunities to inject fun into your interactions with others - whether through a witty comment, a playful gesture, a friendly prank, sharing a slightly embarrassing story, or whatever else makes you smile or laugh.

And if you feel self-conscious or resistant to being playful, remember that all you have to do is expand your comfort zone a little.

If you’ve taken any of my confidence courses, you already know that the way to do that is to take one step at a time outside of your comfort zone until what you want to do becomes comfortable.

You can, for example, start small by practicing with the people you’re most comfortable with. 

You can even prepare something to say or do beforehand while you practice - if you tend to find it difficult to be spontaneously playful.

And as you get more and more comfortable being playful, you’ll likely find that your creativity increases too!

Ultimately, the power of playfulness lies in its ability to bring more joy, creativity, and connection into your life. 

And all we have to do to harness that power is to practice.

So why not start today? 

Identify one way to be playful in the next 24 hours – whether it's leaving a funny note for your partner, initiating a spontaneous dance party with your kids, telling a bad joke to your colleague at lunch, or whatever else.

Then, make sure you follow through on it.

Repeat this exercise every day for the next couple of weeks, and before you know it, you’ll start to include more and more playfulness in your interactions spontaneously.

(Wanna learn more about how to use playfulness to create chemistry with someone? Check out my article about that here.)

-TJ