Commitment 09:
Play & Rest
Creating a life of play, improvisation and laughter allows life to unfold easily and energy to be maximized.
Play is an absorbing, apparently purposeless activity that provides enjoyment and suspends self consciousness and time. It is self motivating and makes you want to do it again. Play is not serious, doesn’t require hard work, effort or struggle.
Organizations that take breaks to rest and play are actually more productive and creative. Energy is maximized when rest, renewal and personal rhythms are honored.
From Above the Line
By Me:
I commit to saying what is true for me. I commit to being a person to whom others can express themselves with candor.
From below the Line
To Me:
I commit to withholding my truth (facts, feelings, things I imagine) and speaking in a way that allows me to try to manipulate an outcome. I commit to not listening to the other person.
Practice It:
When you feel the need to get serious or work much harder,
consider doing the following:
- Take a couple of minutes to argue for why you can’t have what you really want.
- Make up a country song title that describes your current issue and sing a line.
- Have a fifteen-second temper tantrum. Be sure to include your whole body and make noise.
- For thirty seconds, hop on one foot and flap your arms as you discuss your serious issue.
- Radically (and we mean RADICALLY) change your current body posture and then talk about your issue for one minute.
- Sing “I am right—you are wrong” to the tune of your favorite nursery rhyme.
Additional Resources
Define: Play
Stuart Brown defines play as “an absorbing, apparently purposeless activity that provides enjoyment and suspends self-consciousness and a sense of time. It is also self-motivating and makes you want to do it again.”
Excerpt from the Book:
From Above the Line
By Me:
I commit to saying what is true for me. I commit to being a person to whom others can express themselves with candor.
From below the Line
To Me:
I commit to withholding my truth (facts, feelings, things I imagine) and speaking in a way that allows me to try to manipulate an outcome. I commit to not listening to the other person.
Practice It:
When you feel the need to get serious or work much harder,
consider doing the following:
- Take a couple of minutes to argue for why you can’t
have what you really want. - Make up a country song title that describes your
current issue and sing a line. - Have a fifteen-second temper tantrum. Be sure to
include your whole body and make noise. - For thirty seconds, hop on one foot and flap your
arms as you discuss your serious issue. - Radically (and we mean RADICALLY) change your
current body posture and then talk about your issue
for one minute. - Sing “I am right—you are wrong” to the tune of your
favorite nursery rhyme.
Additional Resources
- Dear Past Self: Are you Having Any Fun?
- Time to Put it All Down
- Workaholism Quiz?
- 15 Commitments Book
