Recently while coaching one of my clients we stumbled across a discussion on the value of fun. In doing so, I reflected on the most compelling definition of fun I have ever heard. Fun is a surprise, an a-ha, that teaches us something new. It is a compound effect. We all are surprised, at times, but do not perceive we have learned anything new. We also have situations where learn but do not experience it as a surprise. When these two effects of surprise and learning come together, we have fun. No wonder fun is such a high value for so many.
It really is a shame how either through fact or perception we miss so much fun in life, and at work in particular. In our discussion, we both came to the joint conclusion that fun is more in our control than we thought, for if we saw more of the learning in daily surprises, too often referred to as problems, we would perceive our lives as more fun. Conversely, if we constructed learning experiences for others and ourselves to include more elements of a-ha and surprise, we would also perceive our lives as more fun.
Herein we see that the level of fun in our lives is more in our control than we thought based on our perception, and that we have more power to inject fun in the lives of others with a bit of creativity and planning on our part.
The big lesson for me in this rumination is that even the hardest and most difficult of situations and people can be seen as fun if I also recognize the elements of surprise and learning they almost always contain. A-ha!!!
