271: Joanna Hennon + Holly: Fun For the Sake of Fun

Today’s Guest

Table of Contents

I’m back, with another co-hosted episode with the fabulous Joanna Hennon! Today we’re talking about how to have fun for the sake of having fun. We kind of resisted this topic, but it came through in the end, thanks to some help from an oracle card. While this topic may not be obviously related to business mindset, we think it’s very relevant. Hope you find it FUN!

More About Joanna Hennon

Joanna is a #SoulSmart Success Mentor – she helps people to easily create more success by using the wisdom and power we all have access to at soul level. Living life from a place of soul power, in tune with your higher self and your Guides, and using the Law of Attraction with intention will literally change your life! To get started, grab one of these free resources.

Listen to this episode

What You’ll Learn

Why we need to allow ourselves to do what we need to do to feel good and have fun
How to schedule fun into your calendar and time block it to make sure it happens
Why we need to be willing to feel good, rather than pushing through and hustling all the time
How to figure out what you need to do to have fun + the exact questions you need to ask yourself
Why you need more than one basket of “personal time” activities
Why we often judge ourselves for the things we find to be fun
Why your time off needs to be guilt free (and how to release the guilt)
How to make sure your “down time” is fun (rather than simply productive)
Why this needs to be a commitment to yourself

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Business Mindset Podcast, episode 271. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another co-hosted episode with the fabulous Joanna Hennon. Today, we are going to talk about: how to have fun for the sake of fun. And this is a really interesting episode, because we kind of had some resistance to doing this episode, we got on the call, we started the topic and we started fleshing it out and put together some ballet points. And then, somehow it didn’t feel right so we kind of tried to come up with some other topics, and we just felt stuck. And so Joanna pulled an oracle card, and the card that came up was: have fun. So we took that as a sign that we did need to do this episode today, so clearly this is something that you need to hear.

And, you will hear during this episode how I keep trying to justify having fun, which is why the title is: fun for the sake of fun. I kept trying to say: and fun is productive because of this, this and this and this kind of fun is productive for this reason. And I kept trying to bring it back to fun being productive for one reason or another. That is clearly something I need to work on, and it is clearly the way I justify having fun in my own life. And while this topic may not be obviously business-related, your business life is not separate from your personal life, and it is all related. So, if you are not having fun in your personal life, then it is going to be really hard to enjoy your work time, your business time, and you will really just struggle. I find I myself struggling if I am not making enough time, not just for personal time, and introspection, and that kind of thing, but for fun. I really struggle with this, and I know a lot of other people struggle with this.

So what will you learn today?

You are going to learn why we need to allow ourselves to do what we need to do to talk and have fun. We are going to talk about how to schedule fun into your calendar and time-block it to make sure it happens. And also to give yourself kind of a time limit, in case you are afraid that you are just going to go overboard and never stop having fun, because that’s a fear people have.

We are going to talk about why we need to be willing to feel good, rather than pushing through and hustling all the time. We are going to talk about how to figure out what you need to do to have fun, you specifically, and the exact questions you need to ask yourself, because this is super personal.

We talk about why you need more than one basket of personal time activities, and what that means. We talk about why we often judge ourselves for the specific things that we find to be fun, and why your time off needs to be guilt-free and how to release the guilt. For me, releasing the guilt involves doing the mindset work to release the guilt. So when I see myself feeling guilty for having fun, or for doing fun things, I do the mindset work. So, I do specific belief statements to release the guilt, I do gratitude work, so that I can be grateful for the stuff that I do, the fun things that I do, for giving myself permission to have fun and for having the time to have fun. So, if you need to release guilt around that it is just going back to doing the mindset work however it is that you do it, whether it is PSYCH-K®, whether it is heart-centred-energy-work, whether it is some other technique that you use to release stuff.

We also talk about how to make sure that your downtime is fun rather than simply productive, because the two of us seem to default into productive stuff; and why this needs to be a commitment to yourself, this is super important and if we don’t commit to it, make it a non-negotiable, then it probably won’t happen.

So, before we get into today’s episode I wanted to say a massive thank you to new patron Paul Bergland, thank you so much for joining the Patreon and I look forward to seeing you in there. So, without further ado, let’s move onto today’s episode.

Holly: Hey Joanna!

Joanna: Hey Holly!

Holly: How are you doing today?

Joanna: I am good, how are you?

Holly: Good. So today we are going to talk about how to allow yourself to do what you need to do to feel good.

Joanna: Yep, one of my favourite, favourite things, and one of the things even I forget all the time.

Holly: For me it is not so much I forget but I feel guilty about doing it. I feel guilty about taking breaks.

Joanna: You feel guilty about feeling good?

Holly: No, no, no, it is not feeling good, it is feeling guilty about doing the things that I need to do to feel good. I absolutely make time for that stuff, I made a lot of time for that stuff over the summer, and I felt a lot of guilt about it. You know, I signed up for a bunch of outdoor courses, I started backpacking and camping on my own. I did some walks, I did a bunch of stuff, and I learned a lot, and I had great experiences and I had fun and I really felt guilty that I didn’t make more progress in my business, that I didn’t get more stuff done. So, yeah, that’s something that I really struggle with.

Joanna: Yeah, I think we learn that so early on, that it is just a waste of time, I guess, to just do things without purpose, or do things just because we like them. We always need to be working towards something and archiving something and building something and creating something. And so it has left us with all this guilt, right? So, first of all, I think we should talk about all the different ways, all the different things that one could do to feel good, because I think that is so different for everybody, it is part of this process of self-awareness and being honest with yourself about what you need, and it might not be the same. Not everybody needs to take a lunch break, or not everybody needs to, I don’t know, go out for a walk, or whatever; but the process needs to start with you being honest with yourself about what you need in order to feel good, right?

Holly: Yeah, absolutely. So, since you have recently done this, can we start with some of your things?

Joanna: Yes, I recently did this because I had a mini-meltdown and the group that Holly and I are in together, my friends in there asked me: am I having any downtime and what am I doing for fun basically? And I was like: I don’t know what fun is! {Both: laughing} So, clearly there is a problem, because one should know what fun is. But I think I am not the only one which is why it is something maybe to share. And I went off and Holly said: you clear that stuff! Clear that stuff around fun. So I did. And then I was able to sit down and ask myself the question: what do I find fun? And the way I did that, if any of you listeners want to do this, a great question to ask, I found, was: when was the last time or when was sometimes, a couple of occasions, that you did something and afterwards thought or said: ah that was fun, that was really fun! I just asked Holly this before we started talking, and Holly remembered something from just last week, that was fun, but you weren’t expecting it to be fun.

Holly: Well, it wasn’t that I wasn’t expecting it to be fun, I was looking forward to it, but I had much more fun than I thought I would. It was basically the kickboxing grading for the lower grades and since I am now a brown belt, or above, I can go and volunteer and help. And it was nothing exciting, I was just helping people warm up, I was stretching people down at the end, I did a little bit of sparring and just helping with the gear and the stuff. It was so simple, but it was just kind of hanging out with the other people that were helping and I just had so much fun doing not much. I don’t know, I really, really, liked it. And it was just so nice to see other people grading, and not have to do it myself {laughing} because I always get so nervous. I don’t know, I really had fun, I really enjoyed it, I am definitely going to help out again in the future. So, yeah.

Joanna: I think that’s gold. I really think that understanding that was fun will help you make other choices to add more. It doesn’t even have to be that same grading exercise, what about that did you enjoy so much, and then look out for other opportunities to do that, right? So, you asked me about my list, I sat down, and I made a list of things that I find fun. And I was so surprised at some of the things on there, I am not going to read you the whole list because it is long. which is good. The first thing that came up, for me, is that I find it really fun to go shopping, and shopping has been something that I have judged myself for my entire life, because ever since I was a child I was branded an over-spender. This was the first thing on my list, when I think about when I have done something and thought: this is so much fun, I am really enjoying this. The first thing that came to mind was shopping, I wrote it down and then I was hit with this wall of judgement {laughing} about how I shouldn’t enjoy that because that’s materialistic, and everything that’s wrong with the planet, and overspending, and a waste of money, and a waste of time, and all sorts of things.

Holly: So, I think it is important, as you build this list, look at all this mindcrap that comes up that might prevent you from doing these things that you know are fun.

Joanna: You have to be ready for that if you are going to make your own list, because I think there is a lot of judgement attached to a lot of these things. So then even if you allow yourself to do them you don’t allow yourself to enjoy them.

Holly: Yes, and then you end up feeling guilty like I do.

Joanna: And then you end up feeling guilty, right? So, there is definitely some mindset stuff to work through there for anybody who starts on this fun journey, in allowing fun. And as I was making the list, so many things came to me from my childhood that I found fun, from when I was a teenager that I found fun, when I was a teen I used to shoot pool a lot. This summer I went with my husband and my son, we went to shoot pool. My son is only eight and he is barely holding the cue, but it didn’t matter, it was so much fun to do that. I was just really surprised, really, really, surprised. So definitely make a list, by the way as I was making a list one of the things that came to me that I find really fun is making lists.

Holly: Oh yes! I love making lists. I used to make lists of the lists that I wanted to make!

Joanna: {laughing} You know this, I have this book of lists to make. And I was like: where is that list book? I want to make lists now. I used to be a book blogger so one of my favourite things to do at the end of the year, in December time, people would start making a list of their favourite books made this year. Oh my God, I could literally spend the whole month reading other people’s lists and making my own lists of things to read, based on those lists. Even now, I am like: you know what I am going to let myself do that, I am going to let myself look at all those lists and make my own list. {laughing} So that’s what came out of my list making. I think it is really, really, important because I start, okay I have been doing this for a week now, very, very, consciously making sure I do something fun every day, something that I consider fun every day. I feel like it has really been a game changer, I feel so much better. I am kind of slowly losing the judgement and the guilt, because I feel better.

Holly: Yeah. And it’s funny because when I think about things that make me feel better they are often productive things or personal development things. I am just thinking I of things that I do as part of my normal routine that make me feel better, but that I wouldn’t necessarily call fun. I have a fairly extensive morning ritual, part of which I do my Bardic Grove exercise for my Druid work, that’s not fun, but it is very deeply introspective and calming and I love it, but it is not fun. Yesterday I needed a break and so I listened to some guided meditations, it helped me get a break and it helped me relax, but it wasn’t fun. So, I tend to reach for the productive things, like the self-development stuff, rather than just pure fun stuff.

Joanna: Oh my god, I think this is such a great point, and possibly the reason why this was supposed to be the topic of our conversation today, was this allowing yourself to have fun for the sake of having fun. Like with no other purpose. You are not learning anything you are not contributing to the world, it is really enjoyment for the pure sake of enjoyment, and I have to say that my new obsession with jigsaw puzzles really falls into that category.

Holly: {laughing} Tell us about your puzzles!

Joanna: Oh my god, I love my puzzles! This kind of happened by accident, although there are no accidents, I guess this is exactly what I needed. We bought this puzzle, my son and I bought this puzzle, when we were on holiday and we did it and I enjoyed it so much. Like, it was the only thing that could take my brain away from my work and kind of stop the wheels turning in there, you know? I started referring to it as my sorbet, between courses. I really felt like it calmed my energy, so I could go onto the next thing. And, so, I have developed this slight obsession with them now, and I can’t stand running out, so now I have to have three or four puzzles lined up. It is a true story! I have got this whole giant box of jigsaw puzzles from Amazon last week, and it is really funny, it does require a certain commitment to my self, that it is okay to spend time on this. I was slightly embarrassed, when you were over, Holly, you remember you saw my puzzle. I was just like: yeah, it is my new thing, I know it is a total waste of time, but… So there is this slight embarrassment about…

Holly: Other people finding out this useless thing that you do. {laughing}

Joanna: Yeah, you guys, I spend part of my day on this totally useless activity!

Holly: But see it is not useless, because like you say it is your mind sorbet. It is what clears the pallet of your mind so that you can be more productive.

Joanna: I don’t know, it is teaching me so much somehow, like when I started the first few that I did, I started getting into this frenzy. I would get obsessed with finding the right pieces and I would get into this frenzy of like: it’s impossible. Like, in this real not calm place. I would be like: wait, why am I doing this? Getting really, really, upset and thinking: this is supposed to be my calm time! And it was because I was trying to speed things up, so I was trying to make things go faster, to finish it faster, to produce. I was trying to produce.

Holly: Oh wow! So rather than enjoying the process, enjoying the journey of putting the thing together, you just wanted the thing done!

Joanna: Yes! Which is so stupid because the first thing that I do when it is done is break it up, so I can start another one, you know? A jigsaw puzzle is only for the process!

Holly: Exactly! You are not one of those people that preserves it and frames it and hangs it on a wall?

Joanna: No, no, I did one at my mother’s house and I jokingly asked her to frame it but she thought I was insane {laughing}

Holly: {laughing} So, that was the end of that!

Joanna: I am 42 and I ask my mum to frame my artwork. {laughing}

Holly: {laughing} Mummy I did a puzzle!

Joanna: So pretty! An now I really see a difference, I am really allowing myself to enjoy the process of doing a puzzle, and I am not rushing to finish. And I think it is such a great way to get back into alignment, that’s what it is, right? It is back into alignment with: I am where I am, and this is okay, and it is unfolding just as it should be, and I am enjoying the process. Every time I find a piece that fits, it is a feeling of satisfaction, and isn’t that what anything is, in life, in business? Whatever it is that you are creating, every next bit that fits your puzzle, is satisfying and beautiful and joyful, right? But we don’t think about it that way, we think about: oh okay, but there are so many pieces that I haven’t found yet. My puzzles have a thousand pieces. There is likely a lot of pieces that I haven’t found yet. That is really stressful to think about all the pieces that I haven’t found, you know? I should actually write a blog post about jigsaw puzzles as spiritual activity, because it has really helped me to see how I react to things, and how I approach the process.

Holly: Because it is literally all about the journey, especially if you are not going to hang the thing on the wall, so like enjoy it. Yeah, do a blog post on that, I think that’s such a perfect analogy for the process rather than hurrying to get the finished result.

Joanna: Yeah and then when you allow yourself that time, sometimes I will set a timer, so if any of you guys listening, like struggle with this, taking time for something like that, sometimes I will just set a timer for ten minutes and say: it is my puzzle break, and this is my time to enjoy the puzzle and after that I will go back to whatever it is that I need to be doing. So, it is just finding ways to work it into your life and your daily routine. Since I started doing puzzles in this way, where I allow myself to feel good and not have this extra stress of something I am creating but haven’t quite succeeded yet, hanging over my head, everything has improved, and I feel better in my life. I feel like there is more calmness in our home, my business has done well in certain ways that I haven’t kind of imagined, that I couldn’t imagine, certain things have happened and that’s just because my energy is more aligned with feeling good, right?

Holly: Yeah, and I think that part of the success from what you have just told me, seems to be that you structured you fun, you have given yourself permission to block out time in your calendar for ten minutes, for an hour-and-a-half lunch, for whatever. And I think that’s what would help a lot people, because I think a lot of people either work, work, work, and don’t give themselves decent breaks. Or they have no structure and so they just fall into the habit of doing a bunch of stuff that’s fun, but then they don’t have that structure: I am going to do this for x amount of time and then I am going to get back to work. So you can fall the other way as well.

Joanna: The structure totally, totally works, I am a huge fan of structure now; but, I will say, that I get a lot of questions, I harp on about making time for things that feel good and putting your energy first and all this stuff, a lot, because I think that’s the basis of anything, of any manifesting practice, of any spiritual connection, of anything. And what I find a lot is that people say: if I allow myself to do this thing, if I allow myself to read books for pleasure, that’s all I would ever want to do, I would never go back to work.

Holly: But, is that true? It is like when I started eating Keto this year, so high fat, low carb, I was terrified of potatoes, because potatoes were my number one junk food. I love chips and crisps. {laughing}

Joanna: I’m sorry but you just said that you were terrified of potatoes and that made me laugh.

Holly: {laughing} I was terrified of making an exception and eating potatoes, because I was afraid that once I ate potatoes one day it was all going to go to hell and I would be stuffing my face with potatoes all the time. And that’s not the case, when I was up in Yorkshire, there weren’t many options for food, everything came with chips, there were no salads on the menu anywhere, and so I had a bun-less burger and chips, I had something and chips, for three days in a row I ate chips, which is my number one junk food. And then I came back home, and I went back to normal and I stopped eating potatoes. That also helped me get over my fear of potatoes {laughing} allowing myself to do it, giving myself permission. I said, while I am up here in Yorkshire for this course, this week, I am just going to eat the chips because they are damn good chips.

Joanna: Yes, it is, that permission piece that is really important to allow yourself to do it. What I always tell people who are afraid that all they will every want to do is read books, if you let yourself stop then you will never start again then you really need a break.

Holly: Yes absolutely.

Joanna: And then give yourself. I understand that people have limitations in terms of schedules and whatever but to whatever degree you can, give yourself that time, give yourself the weekend off. Give yourself two sick days to read a book. Give yourself that space to actually indulge in that thing that you feel that you will need forever, because you won’t need it forever, you will get totally bored of sitting on your coach and watching Netflix. You will not need it forever, but if it feels like that now, then you have reached a point where you really, really, really, need to disconnect, right?

Holly: Absolutely eat that potato. {laughing}

Joanna: Eat that potato if you feel you need it, that should be the title of your next book. {laughing}

Holly: And for me since we are talking about food stuffs, because we were talking about lunchbreaks before, I have also added intermittent fasting, so I am just eating one meal a day, which is dinners, which means that I used to always have an hour for lunch in my calendar. I had it blocked out, it said lunch, every single day, but now I am not eating lunch. So, I have deleted lunch from my calendar which means that I have filled up that time with other working stuff, and I have not given myself a mid-day break and I thought: wow, look at this, I am not eating lunch, so I can use that time to be more productive. Well, it doesn’t work that way, I need a midday break. Yesterday, I was working really hard, I was getting so much done, everything time-blocked, I was ticking stuff off my list, and then I just crashed, I just got to this point in the afternoon, where I was like: shit, I can’t focus, I can’t get these damn emails done, I can’t do the stuff. And so I just quit, and I went to bed because it was really cold out and snuggled up under the duvet and I put a guided meditation on and I was so exhausted that I feel asleep and I had to set an alarm, so I could get up and go to kickboxing class, because I was just completely out.

Joanna: Our default is always to get stuff done and be more productive, why is that? Where did we pick this up? Is this just the way the world works? So that we constantly need to be achieving something or… it seems to be all pervasive. I think all my clients suffer from this whatever it is and one of my clients, one of her first wins when she started to come back more to herself and foster her spiritual connection and all that stuff was that she started taking weekends off. And this was such a huge thing! At the beginning she thought she couldn’t do it, it was an impossible no. I see that other people do but it is not possible for me. It has become this real symbol of how far she has come, this taking weekends off. And we default to that productivity thing. We don’t allow ourselves fun and why not?

Holly: I think it is just so pervasive in our society, if you want to be successful you have got to hustle, you have got to push, push through it and hustle. I have been so careful in this business to the point where sometimes I am afraid I have gone too far, but my first business, my business partner was a workaholic, he encouraged me to be a workaholic, I fell into that trap. Sometimes 18-hour-days, six days a week, or seven days a week. I was exhausted, and I was burnt out and it took me a long time to recover from that. So, I feel like for much of this business, I have kind of gone the other way and I have been so protective of my weekends, so protective of not working longer hours. So conscious of doing the things that I know constitute self-care for me, but I also have guilt around that because I think: what if I have gone too far the other way? What if I am being too cautious? What if I could do more, what if I should do more?

Joanna: So you are still not in the right aligned energy?

Holly: No, absolutely not.

Joanna: I think that is key right? That is what I keep talking about all the time, it is not about any of the actions, it is not about any of the stuff that we do, it is always about the energy behind, right? So you don’t actually need to work all the time, even if you own your business, but that time off needs to be guilt free, because otherwise you are still coming at it from that pushy energy and you are kind of resisting the relaxation and the fun and whatever, so it is still misaligned. And then of course it becomes the self-fulfilling thing, oh I knew that if I took this time off I wouldn’t be successful and here we go. But, you took that action from a misaligned energy in the first place, right?

Holly: Yeah and you created the belief…

Joanna: Exactly. So this is why it is so important to make peace with all this stuff and if you don’t know where to start then take small steps?

Holly: Ten minutes to do a puzzle? You can do that anyone can do that. Or ten minutes to do whatever you want, pick your thing and…

Joanna: {laughing} You don’t have to do a puzzle.

Holly: Read a book for ten minutes, any book, and a non-business book, a non-marketing book, a non-professionally-related book, fiction. And that’s another thing that was really hard for me because again, in my first business my business partner was always reading business books, always encouraging me to read business books, which was fine, I loved business books, I loved marketing books. And that kind of fell through into this business and I felt for the longest time that all I would give myself permission to read was business and marketing books and I felt that if I was reading anything else then I obviously wasn’t being productive. And then a couple of years ago I just quit, and I said: I don’t want any more business and marketing books. I need to rest my brain, I need to read fiction. And the same with podcasts, all the podcasts that I listened to were business and marketing podcasts. I got sick of that and I said: I am going to listen to some fun podcasts, I am going to listen to things that are funny, that are interesting, that are not business-related that serve no purpose other than to entertain and keep my mind focussed on something totally different.

Joanna: I used to be a book-blogger a long time ago. My book-blogging days totally came from the wrong energy of intense achievement, I would try to read 100 books a year, which mean that was really, really, stressful. I don’t think I enjoyed any of the books, I enjoyed adding books to my list, but I didn’t enjoy the actual reading because I was trying to speed read through things. In any case I used to read a lot of fiction and you know I read some really great books and I found over the past few years, because I am so engrossed in my business activities, I love it so much, I love my work so much that I have found it really difficult to focus on fiction. So, I wasn’t able to follow the story, basically. And I would sit down, and it wouldn’t engage me, right? And I let that be an excuse to not read, to only read non-fiction, or to just read blog posts that were five tips to do better on Instagram. {laughing} Which are also fun by the way, I like those too. But recently, what I started doing, I really want to be a reader again. I want that to be part of my life, I miss being a reader, I miss being able to have intelligent conversations about books, I miss not being able to tell you what I am reading, if someone asks. I just miss that part of my identity, I had always been an avid reader and I put more of a focus on it and I moved through it. So at the beginning it was harder to focus, and now it is easier again, I read a little bit every day, on my lunch hour and that has really helped me get back into it. See where you are making excuses for why you can no longer do something, or why something is no longer working for you. And if you make the choice to add it back in it will get easier. You will find that flow with it again, right?

Holly: And again, reading fiction is productive because it is like that mind sorbet, so that you can rest your head. And, if you are the kind of person who wants to write a book or has written a book and wants to write more books, the two ways to become a better writer are: read more and write more. Even if you are reading fiction and you are not writing fiction, reading fiction will still help you because reading helps you become a better writer.

Joanna: That’s true too I didn’t think of that bit. You are coming up with reasons for why my fun things are productive! {laughing}

Holly: I am so sorry!

Joanna: I just want to have the fun!

Holly: So, let’s just have the fun. {laughing}

Joanna: Again, that is illustrating that we try to justify to ourselves why it is okay to spend time reading. Oh it will make me a better writer, or why it is okay to do the puzzle: oh I will be fresher for my afternoon working session. And that’s the bit that’s not okay, I think that’s the bit that we want to work through and progressively leave behind so that we can really just enjoy the thing without the thing having to have a purpose for our business, right? Of course it will always have a purpose. I still enjoy adding the book to my Goodreads list and I don’t have a book blog anymore, but I can do it there. I still enjoy that process. It does have some kind of productivity purpose I suppose but I let myself really enjoy the thing.

Holly: I love adding books to my Goodreads. {laughing}

Joanna: That’s the list-maker.

Holly: I know I love it!

Joanna: I feel like we should maybe talk about how this can look different for different people, right?

Holly: Absolutely.

Joanna: We are sharing some of our own examples here and some stories, but at the end of the day you need to really kind of get to know yourself, really, that’s really what it is about. It is about being willing to get to know yourself and kind of as if you are making a new friend: let’s see what this friend likes. Because I think we forget that, we just don’t spend that time with ourselves anymore, you know? So, you don’t need to not have a lunchbreak, or you don’t need to have an-hour-and-a-half for lunch, like I do. You don’t need to do anything, or any of the things that we talked about. Just make a commitment to getting to know yourself, getting to know what things you find fun. Oh, and maybe there is one more thing that I think is really important, is another realisation that I had when I went through this week, or last week, was that I found that because I wanted my schedule to be as productive as possible. So, I wanted to really manage, I have learned to manage my time very, very, well, and so I have put everything that was personal into basket called “personal time” and so everything that wasn’t work was in this basket, called “personal time”. The basket disappears in times of school holidays, because then it is either work time or family time. Personal time disappears completely which makes things even harder. But even when we are not in school holiday time that personal time basket I found that a lot of the things that I do for myself in that personal time basket, I don’t find time. A lot of the things kind of serve a different purpose. So, exercise, is not fun for me. I am not saying that I don’t enjoy at all, but it doesn’t go on my fun list. A lot of things that serve the relaxation purpose, they are not fun. It is not fun for me to take a bubble bath sometimes I need to, but it is not fun.

Holly: I agree.

Joanna: And so for the first time in my life I cannot believe that it took me so long to realise this, that there are aspects of personal time. All of those needs need to be satisfied. So I need to do something that is fun, I need to do something is relaxing and I need to take exercise, I need to do all of these three things regularly and not just pick one per week or something. And for me that was crazy. You have had this as well? You have lumped it together?

Holly: Yeah, I do. So, in my morning, for my morning routine, I have my bardic grove ceremony, and then I have a big chunk of, it is called: journaling and personal time. And, I might do some PSYCH-K®, I might do some mindset stuff, I might read a book, I might do some journaling. It is not fun stuff, it is personal development stuff. And then a lot of times in the evening, I will take a bath, and read a book, and then it is personal stuff, it is relaxing, but it is not fun. And a lot of times I get a little bit antsy because I really wanted that nice warm bath and to relax and to have the Epsom salts and then I think: Epsom salts, again, a bath is productive if you Epsom salts because that’s a really good way for your body to absorb magnesium through the skin. So a bath can also be productive, that’s another way I look at the bath, can you believe me?

Joanna: I can believe you because I also add Epsom salts to my bath.

Holly: Well then, your baths are productive.

Joanna: I used to listen to classes, you know I would buy programs and you would have audio version of the modules and stuff and I would listen to those while in the bath. Like, you don’t want that to be wasted time, you know?

Holly: Of course, you have to have a learning bath.

Joanna: So, I don’t do that anymore.

Holly: Good.

Joanna: Yeah, I tend to lump all that stuff together, though. And I think that the fun is what is missing. I think we have gotten, because of all the hoopla around self-care, I think we have all gotten relatively good at self-care stuff.

Holly: Or at least knowing that we need to do.

Joanna: Or at least knowing that, so we try to take exercise and you know eat whatever constitutes health and good for us and prioritise sleep, all those kinds of things and personal development. But where is this other stuff? I look at my list of things that I have considered fun and I don’t make time for these things because they are not contributing to anything else. I love looking through cooking magazines. I don’t always love the cooking, but I love looking through the magazines.

Holly: Or I love at looking at recipes online and bookmarking them.

Joanna: Same concept, right?

Holly: Exactly and I love what I call “online window shopping” and so I don’t really like going out and physically shopping but I love looking for stuff online and I love looking at stuff in catalogues and I have an Evernote, it is a page in one of my notebooks where I just save links of all the stuff that I want but I don’t necessarily want to buy. So when I want to buy myself something special I will pick something off that list. So it is my way of not necessarily spending the money but having the fun of shopping.

Joanna: And do you make time for that, do you actually say: now I am going to go online window shopping for the day?

Holly: No, but if a catalogue comes in the mail I will sit and read it, or if something pops into my mind like: oh I need… Like yesterday I bought thermals for hiking in the winter, so I went online, and I allowed myself, I gave myself permission to see what all the other clothes that were out. I gave myself permission to look at other stuff in addition to the stuff I needed.

Joanna: I think a lot of it, some of it can be done in ten-minute chunks and some of it requires more of a commitment, like one of the things that is fun for me is music. I used to sing a lot and I have always wanted to take piano lessons and violin lessons and all these things, but that takes time. I find that fun, but it requires a time commitment so if I want to do that I can work that in. There are things you can look at Pinterest recipes for half-an-hour, if you find that fun, right? So, pay attention to what you have lumped together I think is my message here into some kind of personal time and because I really found that all of my personal time was exercise time, basically. For me it wasn’t giving me what I needed at all, because that wasn’t relaxing or fun for me.

Holly: For me, my personal time is all personal development time: I am going to be super-productive, I am going to work on my mindset, I am going to do this, I am going to journal, I am going to dig up all the mindcrap and I am going to fix it and I am going to transform it.

Joanna: That really doesn’t sound relaxing. {laughing}

Holly: No, it is totally not relaxing, and it is not fun. And when I do a lot of it, when I do a big chunk of it, it is exhausting, it is tiring. So, it is useful and productive, but it is not fun. It is fun to see the results! {laughing}

Joanna: Make your own list. If you are listening to this and you are recognising yourself in some of these behaviours that we have shared. If you are a little bit obsessed with being productive, if you are an over-achiever, then maybe make a list of things that you find fun and make a separate list of things that you find relaxing and make a separate list of things you can do for personal development and things you can do for exercise. And whatever other categories you come up with, because I think it is really, really, important to allow yourself to enjoy the things that you enjoy. Not to, the trap that we fall into when we talk about fun and feeling good, is that we tend to focus on making the things that we are doing more pleasant. So: having more fun in your business, or making tasks that you don’t necessarily enjoy, more pleasant or more fun, or adding fun to the things that you are already doing. But, there is this whole other side to fun and feeling good and that’s to allow yourself to do the things that you like to do without guilt, regularly, just make them part of your life. I don’t want to give you a reason, to be honest, to be productive. I can see how already I am trying to justify it in your name, so that you have less resistance to actually doing it. If I give you a list of reasons for why this is good, and why this is going to help you manifest a better reality for yourself, then you are more likely to do it and then that will be happening from the wrong space. I want you to do something that you like doing, that you enjoy doing, purely because you enjoy it and add that into your life, that’s it.

Holly: Fun for the sake of fun, for however long you can, even if it is just ten minutes.

Joanna: A day. It is just to build it in. My puzzle now sits on the living room, I have a puzzle mat as well, I am a totally professional puzzler.

Holly: You are taking this puzzling seriously.

Joanna: I bought a puzzle mat so that I can fold it into this puzzle mat, so it is constantly out, but during the day it is just there and whenever, even when the water is boiling for tea, I am like: oh it would be nice to put a few pieces in. So, I add that joy, that enjoyment to my day and it has made a huge difference to how I feel. That’s all.

Holly: I think so. So make your list, find something and do it. {laughing} That’s your action plan.

Joanna: And don’t look for reasons for why you should, just do it, just let yourself do what you enjoy, whatever those things are.

Holly: Don’t be afraid of the potato!

Joanna: Don’t be afraid of the potato!

Holly: Thank you for listening, please drop me a line and let me know what you thought of this week’s episode, you can email me at [email protected], or get in touch online and let me know what you thought. I would love to see you on Patreon, if you head to https://www.hollyworton.com/patreon you can join me there. Membership starts at just one dollar per month and you will get exclusive access to content that done-for-you mindset work that I don’t do anywhere else, including a monthly Q and A, and my after-thoughts for this podcast. I often think of extra things to add after I finish an episode and I will be creating extra mini-episode where I share those bits and pieces. Thank you again for listening, if you enjoyed this episode please leave a quick review on Apple podcasts or iTunes, it would mean the world to me. Next week I am back with another solo episode. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening and have a fun week, in addition to having a productive week. Have a good day.