What comes to mind when you think about the word play?
For most of us we immediately think of children. Children play. It’s what they do and what they have the right to do. Playing enables children to explore the world around them, make sense of their environment, build relationships to others, develop and practise skills, learn and use new vocabulary, to be active and to have fun. Play is essential to children’s wellbeing and development. The most effective Reception classes in schools are those where play is at the heart of the learning. Where children are allowed to follow their interests, have a degree of autonomy as to what they do and the space and time to enjoy what it is they set out to achieve. This is a powerful approach which gives children a great start to life and to learning.
For most of us, we will have memories of our childhoods and the things that we played with, who we played with and what we played at. Whatever that might have looked like, the chances are you played.
When did we stop playing? When did we start to think of play as something that only young children do? When did we become grown up and serious and become consumed with tasks, jobs, errands and other responsibilities? Of course, as we move into adulthood we change. Life changes. We have to work and many of us choose to settle down and have children. Commitments begin to build up and before we know it, if we are not careful, life can become an endless cycle of working, housework, parenting responsibilities, life admin and errands just to keep our lives in order. Life can quickly become a succession of things to just get done. To tick of the list. A mentality can develop whereby we measure our success through productivity rather than pleasure.
We need to get back to play. For our mental health. For our families wellbeing and for our overall levels of satisfaction in life. But maybe we need to rename it so that, as adults, we are more comfortable with the idea that it is perfectly fine and in fact, preferable, to take the time to do something simply because we enjoy it. Because it is fun. Because it is a nice way to spend some time. Activities that we may think as ‘playful’ as adults can be anything you enjoy. Cooking, gardening, reading, writing, art, walking, gaming…the list is endless.
The only thing preventing us from doing the things that we enjoy is our own mindset. Whether or not we allow ourselves to use some of our time for pleasure. Whether or not we believe that it can also be considered productive to do things that we enjoy. Whether we are able to let go of guilt around the idea of taking some time for ourselves. Whether we understand that life is more than just working and ‘doing’.
Think about how you want to be and feel, rather than what you want to do. Do you want to be relaxed? Do you want to be happy? Do you want to feel satisfied? What can you do to make sure you feel like this?
Time is also not an excuse. There is always time. It is again your mindset around time and how you value it, organise it and prioritise it that can cause time to appear limited and to be the reason not to do something.
How can you being back an element of play into your life? How would it make you feel? What sort of person would you be if you had regular time to do things that you enjoy? How would this impact your health and wellbeing? How can you organise your time to ensure you have enough of it to do something for yourself?