I was driving my 7 year old daughter to soccer camp the other morning when I noticed she was unusually quiet. Thinking she was nervous or having second thoughts about the program, I asked what she was thinking and she replied “I’m just thinking of how much fun I’m going to have today”.
Honestly, it was a line that threw me. This is a girl who was only going to soccer camp because her friend wanted to, and had previously shown no interest in it. Yet, there she was visualising how much fun it would be.
Sure, the cynics among us will say, “yeah but she’s only a child, she doesn’t have an appreciation of what visualisation really means”. But I challenge that theory. I wonder if, as kids, we actually have the world figured out and as we grow older we just kind of… well, forget.
It is so easy to look at the day ahead and think of the meetings we have planned, the sales pitch we have to do at 2pm and the planning discussion at 4, and just be thinking “just get through it, just get through it”, while not-so-secretly dreading the day. Or when you spill coffee on your favourite blouse in the morning and think “yup, today is going to suck”.
When did we forget about the joy of life? Or the excitement of doing what we do? Yes, kids don’t have to worry about paying the bills or hitting targets but still, I watch my girls get ready for the day and (mostly) they’re excited about the day ahead, because… ‘it’s fun’.
I tried an experiment the other day where I actively chose to channel positivity in everything I did. So whenever I was presented with a chore or something I typically wouldn’t look forward to it and applied the old Mary Poppins trick.
“In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun; Find it, and snap, the job’s a game”
It was a good day that. Now the challenge is to do it more often, and imagine if we all woke up and chose to find the fun in everything. Gee it’d be a great day.
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