How to Conduct a “Fun Audit”
If you feel like you really don’t know where to find fun in your life, try setting a modest stretch goal that pushes you out of your comfort zone, Mark Congdon, author of The Ideal Life suggests. It doesn’t even have to be something that sounds especially fun; you’re seeking the satisfaction that comes from pursuing a new skill. Then you can build on that feeling of full engagement.
“So, rather than put too much pressure on the result, focus on the process that leads to the result,” he says. “That’s much easier to control, and it’s going to result in the outcomes that you want.”
You can also do what Catherine Price, author of The Power of Fun, and Substack newsletter called How to Feel Alive, calls a “fun audit.” Conjure up some memories of playful, silly, engaging experiences, then write down the ones that stand out.
These don’t need to be profound. One of Price’s interview subjects shared a memory of going out in the rain with their grandfather when they were a child, no umbrellas. They allowed themselves to get soaked. “I love that,” she says, “because it shows how fun can be mundane but also deeply meaningful.”
You might also write about the last time you laughed hard, smiled so much that your face hurt, or felt really alive. Where were you? Who was there? What were you doing?
As you start to build out your own personal fun history on paper, search for themes. Most likely, you’ll find some activities surfacing repeatedly — certain people and settings too.
Price calls those activities, people, and places your “fun magnets,” and they’re clues to your own personal “fun type.” Understanding what type of fun appeals to you makes it easier to find more of it and to take a pass on activities that you know won’t light you up. (For more information about fun types, take the quiz at What’s Your Fun Personality Type?)
In addition to fun magnets, we all seem to have “fun factors” as well. These are the characteristics that make certain things feel fun to us, she explains, and each of us has a different collection.
A fun mindset helps you seek chances to “create — or appreciate — humor, absurdity, playfulness, connection, and flow.”
Maybe you’re drawn to physical activities, like dancing or playing sports, or to intellectual ones, like Scrabble or witty wordplay. Maybe you have the most fun when you’re in nature or while cooking or eating with people you love.
Finally, Price suggests cultivating a fun mindset. This is less about identifying preferences and more about opening yourself to possibilities. A fun mindset helps you seek chances to “create — or appreciate — humor, absurdity, playfulness, connection, and flow,” she writes.
It also enables you to have fun in nearly any context. “I’ve had fun in doctor’s appointments,” Price says. “You [can have fun] chatting with an Uber driver or in other random moments.”
In short, knowing ourselves and what we enjoy can help us have more fun. We don’t have to wait for permission or perfect conditions either. Playful, connected, engaged fun can almost always coexist with whatever else we have going on. We just need to be willing to drop our guard and let it in.
