From time to time I feel our family fun time is lacking. When I sense this piece of our lives is lacking, I get creative and take action to get it back! Living life without laughter, silliness and time for fun with those you love, makes for a dull existense.
Without fun in our lives, life becomes all about work, deadlines and chores. We were made to enjoy the fruit of our labour, money, time freedom and relationships. Why plant a tree if you can’t eat the fruit?Here are 5 Steps to help you create more time for family fun:
- Evaluate your values. Your values are a compass that help you make decisions. When you know the emotional states you want to feel daily, you’ll be on your way to clarifying your values. Physical objects or relationships are valuable but you need to clarify what underlies those ‘topical’ values. For example, if you value marriage, how does ‘marriage’ make you feel? Might it be that your deeper value is connection or love?
When you clarify the top 3 emotional states you want to feel on a consistent basis, you have identified your top 3 values. With your values at the top of your mind you’ll be able to make decisions in light of your highest priorities. This will enable you to make time for people and activities that may be lacking right now.
- Raise Your Standards (or create realistic standards). This is where you need to be open and honest with yourself! Where are you letting important things slip in your life? Are you staying at work later than you want to because you feel others aren’t trustworthy to get the job done? This often means you don’t get the time with your family that you (and they) want. You say one thing but maybe your actions aren’t lining up with what you tell others is most important to you. In what area of your life do you need to raise the bar and believe in yourself and your abilities more? You are capable of a LOT. You are talented and creative when it comes to figuring out different solutions for your challenges. This is not the time to give yourself a guilt trip, but to raise your standards and decide to mature in the areas you need to grow in. Remember, we’re all on our own growth journey!
Some of you have unattainable standards for yourself and these standards are adding too much stress to your life. For those that fall into this category, my recommendation is to practice being more gentle with yourself and realistic with your expectations. You can’t and will never be able to cross off everything on your to-do list every day of your life, so how will you create more realistic expectations for yourself in the areas of health, family time and rest?
- Develop Clear Boundaries. When you have fuzzy boundaries, you are tellling others (at work and at home) that you don’t mind being walked on a bit. You are the go-to person when a job or volunteer opportunity arises. You hardly ever say no (and define your boundaries) so people clearly think you’ll be happy to do the job or at least put up with the work.
If you want to reclaim your time and spend it on what really matters to you you need to stop caring what others will think when you change your boundary lines and say no. When you say no to others you’re stating that you, your time and your priorities are valuable and worthy of taking a stand for. You don’t need to feel guilty or selfish for prioritizing your values. If you don’t, you will be living your life to please others and never feel fully satisfied with your decisions. You definitely won’t have the time you want with your family or friends!
- Learn To Trust Others. You’ll also need to learn to trust others (in your absence) to do just as good a job as you would have. If you never let go of the control you feel you need to keep tightly in your grasp, you’ll never have the freedom you want. Freedom comes when you decide to trust others to manage work when you take time off to have fun and relax. Choose people who have shown you they are capable or coachable. Learn to give others opportunities to grow into leaders themselves. Your need to do everything perfectly or your way only keeps you chained to an unreasonable amount of responsibilities.
- Plan Ahead. If you don’t, you won’t see change take place in the future. You need to be future focused so you can look forward to fun. When you have a plan for fun, even a very heavy workload seems lighter. Thoughts of what you’ve planned for in the future brings a smile to your lips and a lightness to your heart.
- Take Action. Planning is good but is completely unuseful if you never take action. Put your plan into action with manageable baby steps. The smaller the steps, the more progress you’ll make and the more confident you’ll become! Taking action towards creating more fun time with your family is like enjoying small victory after small victory. Each little step taken towards the lifestyle you want to lead makes you feel good about yourself. You’re taking action, making progress, making change happen!
What will your action plan look like? How will you apply the steps above to create the life you want to be sharing with your family and friends? I’d love to hear your story!