Summertime and the livin’ is easy — or is it? Although summer is promoted as being a time of fun in the sun, in today’s 24/7 world, summer fun can sometimes get derailed by a to-do list.
That’s why, as summer officially begins, Live Happy is offering its Summer of Fun with Mike Rucker, PhD. Based on Mike’s book, The Fun Habit: How the Pursuit of Joy and Wonder Can Change Your Life, this eight-week email course is designed to help you make the most of your time by building fun into your weekly schedule.
“Fun is really rooted in mindfully being attentive to the pleasurable things you do,” Mike says. “But it’s also understanding that you have the agency and autonomy to bias your life toward those things.”
Becoming more aware of what’s fun for you and intentionally focusing on it creates a greater sense of happiness: “Once you wake up to it and do what I call ‘filling my fun cup,’ you realize the rest of your life is better.”
Research shows that people who aren’t living a balanced life or seeking joy are prone to burnout, but adding fun to your schedule can reverse that.
Are We Having Fun Yet?
One of the biggest obstacles to people pursuing fun is their misperception of what it means. Mike says social media can paint a picture of what fun should look like — but that image doesn’t resonate with everyone. That means you don’t need to be partying at a rock concert or taking a big summer adventure to have fun.
“It might be a low-arousal activity,” he says. “Maybe the most amazing summer for you is some alone time at the pool, engrossed in a good book. Figuring out what things give you pleasure and being deliberate about scheduling them in — you’re halfway there already.”
Summer is the ideal time to build a habit of fun in your life because it provides more options than the other seasons. “The extended daylight that summer provides, more autonomy, and access to more activities give you more things to explore.”
Sign up for Fun
To help put those ideas into action, Live Happy’s Summer of Fun with Mike Rucker, PhD email course walks through the steps to build a fun habit. It starts with creating a “fun file” — or identifying what you’d like to fill your fun cup with — and then teaches you how to schedule fun by providing weekly “assignments.” Mike offers a step-by-step guide to implementing the assignment in each email and explains what those activities do for your brain.
By creating a habit of fun for eight consecutive weeks, Mike says he is hopeful that people will turn this into an ongoing practice.
“We call it a fun habit for a reason,” he says. “This is the long game, not just something you do and then move on from. We’re not meant to have fun just in the summer.”
