Work Life Play: How to Increase Our Happy Meter & Have More Integration in Our Life w/ Aaron McHugh

For most people life, work, and play belong in different categories, and we find ourselves out of balance with the things that matter in our lives. How can we start integrating these 3 facets of our lives so we have more meaning and purpose? Why is the vocation of work different from the spirit of work? What is the difference between destination and direction? How can we bring intentionality into our play? On this episode, author, podcaster, and adventurer, Aaron McHugh, talks about how we can bring work, life, and play together to make our lives happier.

 

 

The point is to run small experiments daily in the direction we want to head. Over time, that becomes the way we live. -Aaron McHugh

 

3 Things We Learned From This Episode

• Destination vs. direction
  Destination is feeling like you have to arrive at a certain place to feel like we’ve achieved something. The problem is that it’s frustrating and disappointing because it seems so far and out of reach. It’s better to focus on subtle 2-degree shifts, slowly making a change to where we want to go.
  
  
• Why we need to change how we see the stories of our lives  
  We don’t always get a chance to choose our story, but we each have an opportunity to choose how we live in our story. That means not playing the victim and instead finding the good in the challenges we face.  
  
  
• How to have real play in our lives
  For a lot of people, what should be a time of play becomes another field to be competitive and work. Try to allow your leisure time to actually be “play”, rather than merely another form of stress and comparison.

 

If we want our lives to be different, we have to do something different. There has to be a behavioral and directional shift. If we want our lives to be more integrated and wholesome, we have to bring repeatable, sustainable systems into everything we do. If we want to win the day, we have to win the first moments of the day. We have to take a different approach and remember why we got into the business we’re in. If we think of our lives with purpose and meaning, we can change everything completely.

 

Guest Bio-

Aaron McHugh is a writer, podcaster, adventurer, and author of the best-selling book, Fire Your Boss: A Manifesto to Rethink How You Think About Work. He helps people restore balance in their work, their life, ​and relationships by learning to dream again, play more, and discover a sustainable pace. Go to https://www.aaronmchugh.com for more information.