Author Archives: Kay Walker

Having fun. Why increasing your fun will lead to a better life

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Take a moment right now to think about the current level of fun you’re having in your life. Seriously, take a second to rate how much fun you’re having on scale of 1 to 10. What number did you give yourself? Need to up your fun level? Read on to learn the critical importance of having fun and why increasing your fun will lead to a better life.

Wh having fun is good for you

Having fun. Why increasing your fun will lead to a better life

Are you having too much fun, too little or,  just enough? It’s important to strike a balance. Too much fun and you won’t be productive; too little fun and your life may lack fulfillment.

And let’s clarify “fun” for the purposes of this article. True fun activities are ones that are frivolously joyful. They have no agenda. And, they are things you do for the sake of doing them. Plus, they don’t produce any other outcome but to make you laugh or smile.

Fun is not a priority for many people

Most people don’t make fun a priority, though having fun is CRUCIAL. Most people put responsibility and their survival needs first. Technically though, isn’t fun a survival need? Ever thought of it this way? Think about it, if you’re always doing what you have to do (and not necessarily want to do) you’ll suck your levels of joy and happiness dry. You’ll mentally drain yourself. The joy you experience from living your life will dwindle.

Is a life worth living if it doesn’t inspire you? Really. Take a moment to consider that question. Isn’t the entire point of life to be happy. To enjoy what you’re up to? To feel fulfilled?

Why fun is critical to happiness

Research backs up these claims. Here’s why increasing your fun will lead to a better life…

Having fun amplifies your joy and fulfillment levels

This is probably a pretty obvious result that comes from having fun.  And it’s an important one. If you ask most people what they want most in life the response is commonly: “To be happy”.  That’s the entire reason for living. Having fun raises your happy factor. It has you produce more positive emotions, the ones linked to your pleasure centers of the brain.

When you engage in fun activities that get you in a state of feeling good, your brain learns to activate the pathways that produce positive emotions faster. The more you have fun the easier it is for you to live in the positive emotional states we all crave.

Having fun increases your productivity

When you have fun you create more energy. You physically rev up your body. Most people don’t understand that, “the more energy you make the more you have”. Think about it. Simply jumping up and down for a few minutes has you feel more full of energy. So, when you have fun you can actually create more physical energy, rather than drain it (which is what activities that are not fun do tend to do).

When you have fun, your brain goes into a relaxed state called your Default Mode Network. During this state your brain makes critical connections. Creativity happens when you allow your mind to lock into it’s DMN mode versus its – neuroscience term here – Task Mode Network. This is what state it’s in when you use your rational thinking brain regions to do activities that are necessary, but aren’t exactly “fun”.

Having fun has you create miraculous things in life and business

Because you allow your brain to go into creative states when you’re having fun, naturally you bring that innovation into your life. You start to see things you haven’t before. New pathways of action become obvious. Your ability to generate ideas is more of an asset in a today’s information-packed world than it ever has been before.

Having fun builds human connection and gives you a social edge

Many fun activities will cause you to interact with other people. Being open to new people, new communities will also help you foster great friends or business relationships.

Ask yourself this question: Is it more enjoyable to be around people who you consider fun, interesting and maybe a bit quirky, or people who are all serious all the time. Being fun gives you a social edge. You bring interesting ideas to the table. If you have more fun, and become more fun by nature, people will want to be around you.

Having fun gives you existential meaning

Fun seems purposeless, but it is in having fun that you connect to yourself in deep ways. Playing connects you to life. It connects you to yourself. It’s in moments of fun where you start to see an new level of life unfold.

Real fun versus fun fallacies 

Most people don’t really know how to have fun. You’ve been conditioned by living in a world where external gratification and fast fixes are a priority. There’s a difference between fun activities that cause you to smile and be giddy just thinking about them versus fun activities that drain your energy. Some activities in your current “fun list” might even wreak havoc and get in the way of what you truly want in life.

There are also activities are fun in moderation. For instance, cooking and eating a beautiful meal with a partner is a fun activity. Food is fun in this way. However, craving and devouring large portions of food without appreciating it makes food no longer fun.

The same goes with alcohol. It’s fun to share a glass or two of wine in a social setting with friends. But there’s a fun fallacy that comes with alcohol. For instance, consuming large amounts is fun at the time, but it drains your energy and messes with your mood. Fun that has a delayed negative payoff isn’t real fun.

Real fun activities are things you do for no reason at all. Painting a picture. Kayaking out on a lake. Playing tennis. Shopping for a new outfit. Playing an instrument. Sing! Come up with a roller derby name for yourself! Learn something totally new that’s something you’ve always want to explore.

How to have more fun

Let your freak flag fly

Be silly. Really silly. Be totally weird in the comfort of your home. With yourself and with anyone you live with. Shake your booty. Start the day with dancing. You can be fun anytime. You can bring fun anywhere you go. A simple way to connect to your fun side is to think of a fun time you had. Close your eyes and bring yourself back to that moment. It will put you in an immediate mental state of fun.

Do things without a reason

When you think “this is a useless thing to do”, it’s probably fun and very useful. Having that thought is a signal that you should go explore that pointless hobby or activity. You may find that pointless activities are the most valuable uses of your time. I dare you to try it.

Connect to your kid-self for inspiration

What were you obsessed with when you were a kid? Did you love to sing? Dance? Read? Or were you one of those kids that was always on the go, running around expending energy and playing sports? Think about what you loved and start there. Go do an activity that is in line with something you used to love doing, but don’t do anymore.

Spend time around or interacting with kids or animals

This is sure to unleash your fun side. Kids and animals are often a direct line to getting into a mood of play and fun. It’s natural to them because they haven’t developed or don’t have the rational brain regions that adults have. (In other words, they don’t have a boring switch)

What can you do that is fun today? What activity can you plan that is fun to do next week. Inject some frivolous fun into your life right away and see for yourself the difference it makes. Your world might just get a bit more colorful.

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Free confidence booster tool

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How to get confident on demand

The most powerful people in the world lose their ability to feel confident at times. Anyone who is human and has a pulse has moments where they don’t feel self-assured. This is a guarantee.

Even someone as calm and collected as Oprah Winfrey admittedly mentioned on one of the old episodes of her show that, when she is nervous to meet someone “important” she would remind herself “he poops too”.

I always remember this and laugh. It helps shift the context of the situation from “this person is important and I’m not on their level” to “we are both humans with the same insecurities and struggles”.

Ah, so true.

Confident people have learned to get there quickly

For many of the people you look up to and see as incredibly confident, you’d never know when they are struggling. This is because they’ve trained themselves to deal with it quickly so it doesn’t get in the way. Moments where they lack confidence only last a few seconds.

You’re no different. (Remember, you poop you!). You can learn to do the same.

And, I’ve developed a simple confidence booster tool that will make it easy for you. You’ll find it below. It’s a technique I’ve designed for you to use to become confident on-demand in moments where you lose this ability. Use it anytime, anywhere.

But before I share the tool, I want to a share a quick story about my No.1 lack of confidence trigger.  It’s what prompted me to come up with this tactic. Maybe you can relate?

What triggers a lack of confidence

When I am interacting with a group of people where it really matters to me that they like me I get freakin’ nervous.

Groups like my neighbors, for example. They live near me and it matters to me that they like me and include me.

I don’t feel this way when I meet groups of people I may never see again, such as at a networking event. In those moments, I take on a “I have nothing to lose attitude”.  You don’t like me? I’ll never see you again. It’s cool.

So, it’s when I see the relationship as one that matters that I get all stressed about it.  When I don’t deal with my lack of confidence, parts of me that I don’t like can come out. I either:

  1. Feel a need to “prove myself” by showing how great I am in a bragging about accomplishment type way, or most often 
  2. Get quiet and I don’t share myself. This usually happens if I pick up on a body language cue from someone who I don’t think likes me and then make up that they don’t and take on a “screw you, I’m awesome I don’t need you attitude”.  

In these moments, I forget who I am. And, it’s annoying to me that I tend to shut down. Or act not like myself.

Most people have similar protective reflexes when interacting with people they care like them.

Why  people lose confidence in groups

No one wants to be ostracized. It’s built into our biology. Our ancestors didn’t survive when they were excluded from the pack. Which is why a lot of people lose their confidence in groups. (And also why public speaking is the No.1 fear in the world).

This confidence killer is particularly bad for me. When I was a kid I was overweight. A lot of the kids at school and family members made me feel like I wasn’t good enough because I was a bigger girl. I never felt accepted when I was just being me.

I mention this because all of us start to build a self concept of who we are around 8-10. Whatever challenges we have around that time come to define our natural tendencies in adulthood. These become unconscious and automatic. Many people aren’t aware of why they are doing something. If you identify a behavior in yourself you don’t like you will likely be able to trace it back to a moment that happened during this time period of your development.

So, while I’ve worked incredibly hard at loving myself and being with people as I’ve grown into an adult, my early abuse from people still triggers me and tries to take me out.

It happened to me not long ago when I was about to attend an event with some “influential people” in my city.  I wanted to show up as confident. As me without nerves getting in the way. But the entire day I was feeling stressed.

To deal with these annoying nerves I had a conversation with my personal development coach, Robin H-C. She asked me how would I like to be at the event?

I said: “Like my husband”.

“But really. He’s incredible with people. And he doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him because he is settled in who he is. He barely thinks about what he’s going to wear, and walks into the room like a rockstar. And everyone loves him.”

Her coaching was to ask him about what he feels when he goes to an event like the one I was attending.

So I did, and what I learned from him made me realize: That in the moments where I lose my confidence, it’s simply because I forget who I am.

You see, my husband, wears his awesomeness on him. He can’t not. He’s worked very hard to accomplish major things in life – five books, a tv host, a successful entrepreneur, created a successful national charity.  And it’s not about the accomplishments, it’s about what he’s done that’s proved to himself how powerful he is. It’s hard for him to forget how awesome he is because he can just remind himself of what he’s done.

Other people may not have written books or been tv hosts but we’ve done things like raise kids and finish school. These accomplishments way not look as sexy but they are.

It’s important to wear your awesomeness on you. When you do, you will be confident all the time. When you lost confidence you can get it on demand by reminding yourself how great you are – even if you don’t think you are.

Noticing that what was at the core of my lack of confidence – and it’s true for all people – was a lack in my own abilities. So, I created a reminder tool I call the “Awesome you list”.

Here is how to use this confidence booster tool

Here’s what to do and how to use it:

In a moment where you are alone and feeling good and confident create a list that you can access when you need it to boost your self confidence.

You have to do it when you are feeling good so you can be prepared when lack of confidence comes up at a future moment.

Describe why you are awesome. Write down your achievements and accomplishments, the people in your life who love you and why.

Then, in any moment where you lose your confidence, quickly take a few moments to read the list. Get present to it. It will allow you shift context and be able to take on any moment.

I’ve created a simple script with examples that will help you build yours.

If it seems silly or stupid, I urge you to put those thoughts away and try this. Build your list today and when a moment where you lack confidence shows up you’ll be able to regain composure in minutes.

Keep in mind: If you have trouble building an “Awesome You list” you may have another issue. You might have a problem loving and appreciating yourself. You have trouble letting love in. This will cause issues for you all over your life. There is additional work you can do to become more loving with yourself.

You can also get someone to help you build your Awesome You list sing this confidence booster tool. It’s about pumping you up and celebrating your victories. If you can see them clearly, someone in your life can.

feeling fat and ugly

What to do when your weight gets in the way you being you

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What to do if you are feeling fat and ugly

feeling fat and uglyHave you had this experience? All is great with life then one day you start to feel a bit heavier. Your clothes aren’t quite fitting like they used to. But you look at yourself and decide you still look fine. Days and weeks go by of you having this experience, feeling a bit heavier but not denying the little belly you’re growing. Then, one day you go step on the scale. You are 15 lbs heavier than you’d like to be. Crap! You are feeling fat and ugly.

You start thinking about what you need to do to lose the excess weight that seemed to come out of nowhere. Your thoughts start to annoy you. You tell yourself you suck because you let yourself gain the extra weight. Ugh! Nothing is fitting like it used to. You’ve been wearing more black than usual.

You feel like crap and you’re noticing it’s getting in the way of your life. You don’t feel like you. And that voice in your head is getting louder: I’m feeling fat and ugly. I’m feeling fat and ugly. Ugh. It is destroying your self confidence.

And even if you’re taking actions to lose the weight, that takes time. So how can you feel good about being in a body you don’t particularly love and feel comfortable in?

You are not your body

1. Get that you are not your body. Most people have a tendency to collapse these two things.  There’s you and there is your body. YOU ARE NOT YOUR BODY.  So, your overweight body doesn’t need to get in the way of who you are and what you’d like to do.

There is something you need to think about and understand, like a rule of the universe. Like gravity. You are not your body. You need to remind yourself of this when your body is getting in the way of your life.

2. You need to respect and celebrate the body you don’t like. A lot of people refuse to buy nice new clothes until they lose the weight. Big mistake. Why wait months to look better to dress nicely and feel good?  You need to accept where you are and go out and buy some gorgeous new bigger clothes. This will help you feel great about your current body so it doesn’t get in the way of your life. It’s amazing what bigger, sexy clothes can do to make you feel good.

3. Take action!  If you’re not happy about your body, but you’re not doing anything about it then I have no pity for you, and no one else does either. Learn to be unstoppable about getting what you want. This includes the shape you want for body. And if it’s not about your weight, but you hate something else, like your nose or breasts, what are you doing about it? You don’t have to go crazy. Small, rituals lead to big results. Start walking. Eat the foods you like, but replace sugar and find natural foods to incorporate. Taking action around anything that doesn’t work in your life will immediately give you power.

And so, are you currently dealing with feeling fat and ugly? Try the tactics above and tell me what you think.

Feeling lost in your 20s? You can free yourself quickly

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Feeling lost in your 20s? You can free yourself quickly and maybe quicker than you think. The tips below may inspire you to take some new actions so you can get yourself to a place of feeling better fast.

Feeling lost in your 20s

Feeling lost in your 20s is kind of normal

Feeling lost in your 20s is (unfortunately) part of the process

If you’re feeling lost you might be feeling embarrassed about it, or like you’re being ridiculous. Aren’t the 20s supposed to be some of the best years of your life? You’ve got a bright future ahead of you. You’ve got your youth. And most 20-year olds are also in great physical health. You should be feeling grateful and excited not feeling lost. Right? 

The answer to that is: NO! Feeling lost in your 20s is part of the process. You’re still figuring your life out. Most 20-year olds don’t have it all together. Most have bouts of uncertainty about their direction in life. Take a moment to tell yourself to breathe and chill out. It’s okay to be feeling lost in your 20s. It’s also not that hard to find yourself again.

Here’s why you are feeling lost in your 20s…

Statistically, the occurrence of feeling lost in your 20s is growing rapidly. This is due to a variety of factors but the biggest reason is the Internet. It has changed the way people live and work globally. It’s opened up so many pathways of opportunity. If you’re in you’re 20s your bound to be confused and more than previous generations were.

You’d think having more options would be a good think. You’d think it would give you freedom but that’s not true. Options complicate things. Too much information coming at you warps your energy. It makes you confused. This is why feeling lost in your 20s is a growing experience. There’s a name for it: The Quarter Life Crisis. And you can experience a quarter life crisis anywhere form 20-40 and multiple times!

Feeling lost in your 20s can feel isolating because you think you shouldn’t feel that way. Most people don’t share openly about feeling lost which is why it’s not often talked about. But feeling lost is 100% normal. So take that too heart. It might help to remember that you’re not alone.

How to free yourself when you’re feeling lost in your 20s….

Accept the process

The first thing to do when you’re feeling lost in your 20s is to accept that feeling lost happens. It’s happening to you now. It will likely happen again. Periods of feeling lost is a human experience. Life is not perfect. There are ebbs and flow to the journey. When you’re lost, simply consider that you’re in an ebb period and you’re on your way to clarity. It will come. This time will pass. The way you feel will pass. It’s inevitable.

After you normalize what you’re going through by owning that this is part of the process for everyone then you can take some actions to feel better as soon as possible, gain clarity and jump back into action.

Ask yourself these questions…

It might be time for you to ask yourself some deeper questions about your role in this world and what you want to do with your life. When you answer these questions it will help you formulate future you’d like to see yourself achieve. When you decide what you want and you begin taking action you’ll feel much better. The questions to ask yourself when you’re feeling lost in your 20s are:

1) What do you want your life to be about?

2) What you want to contribute to this world?

3) What do you want to experience in life?  

These are the questions to start to consider. You may have some answers. Or you may not. It doesn’t matter whether you have answers or not. What matters is that you start to think and get curious about these things. Start exploring and researching options conceptually. Start visualizing your future and thinking about what you’d like it to contain.

What do you love to do now? 

What are you passionate about?

Answer these questions and start taking actions in that direction. Let your passions, your heart, your deep desires lead you and figure out how to fit the rational pieces in. For instance, if you want to be a musician go be a musician! But if you also want to make money figure out how to combine those two things. The easiest way is to find someone who is doing what you want to do. Start learning, start modeling them. It’s definitely a place to start.  But remember: Passion first, logistics second.

Do lots of different things

Explore. Dip your toe in new experiences. Think about what you’d like to do and try. Then, take ACTION. Go try them. Test the waters. The sooner you are able to discern what you want and don’t want the sooner you’ll see a clear path. Don’t stay in your box. Get outside yourself! You’re options are limited by what you know. And so, be in the pursuit of gaining new knowledge. It will give you an edge. It will help you see the direction you want to go in.

Go to work on you

In a world that conditions us that success is about external validation, the best thing you can do at this time in your life is go to work on you. Learn how to communicate like a master. Discover how to become influential. Learn how to control your emotions. This is what truly gives you the power in life to do anything.

Emotional intelligence training – focusing on building your personal skills of thinking and communication – will allow you to achieve anything you want. When you work on your own personal power you take that power everywhere you go. You experience a new way of living. You learn what success really is.

Tap into the resources around you, seek out new ones. Learn how to generate ideas. Discover how make money from ideas (aka build businesses)

And then, learn how to shift your emotions so when you feel bad you can flip the switch to feeling good. It’s powerful and it will give you strength when you are confused and feeling lost in your 20s.

You can start now. Start here. Go read some articles or grab so free personal development tools. If you want more info on quarter life crisis, grab this: Quarter Life Crisis ebook – free copy 

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Feeling lost and confused? How to free yourself

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Feeling lost and confused happens to everyone one or more times (usually more)  in their life. It’s an excruciating experience. Being directionless is mentally agonizing. This is because when you have no plan for your future because you’re unclear about your next steps, you’ll be paralyzed when it comes to taking action and making progress. You’ll feel and be totally stuck. So what do you do to gain some mental relief? How do you free yourself from feeling lost and confused? Read on…

Feeling lost and confused

Feeling lost and confused?

Feeling lost and confused? How to free yourself

Like a seasoned surfer that surfs the waves you need to do the same. You’d never see a surfer trying to surf against the wave, against the current? That would be illogical. It would be totally ridiculous.

So the first thing to do when you’re feeling lost and confused is allow yourself to feel that way. Don’t resist it. Just be in the space of being lost and confused. Do your best to stop trying to solve your problem. You will want to because people are inquisitive. Humans like to know WHY. We like to solve things, especially our problems. Though, when you find yourself trying to force yourself out of feeling lost you’ll make it worse.

The first thing to do is to get that you feel lost and confused right now. Know that it’ll will pass soon. Surrender to how you feel. Continue to engage in your regular life. Do your best to relieve your mental agony by pursuing activities you enjoy. Having some fun just for the sake of it is a good way to handle feeling lost and confused.

Consider what you used to do for fun when you were a kid. Paint? Sing? Dance? Play a sport? Pick one activity and go do it. It’ll connect you to you and may drum up some inspiration. It might even be the thing that frees you.

Feeling lost vs. feeling lost and confused and totally in the dark!

There are two types of feeling lost. Sometimes you find yourself feeling lost simply because you haven’t decided what your next actions are. Sometimes it takes simply considering your options and choosing your next action. When you start to take new actions you’ll feel better. You’ll gain traction.

But sometimes, it’s far worse. You feel lost and totally and utterly confused. No matter what you try to do you have no idea where you’re going in life. The more you try and solve the problem, the more you entertain ideas and mentally visualize possible futures, the less clear you feel. The experience is one of being completely in the dark or in a fog in your mind. You question everything. You question your future, your past, the actions your taking now. It feels like a full on existential crisis.

There’s a term for feeling lost and confused that many spiritual leaders use: “the dark night of the soul”. When you’re in a dark night period it’s suggested that it’s because you come out of a major period of personal transformation (many times it comes after a major personal failure or loss). It’s like you’re shedding a piece of who you used to be and a new, more advanced and full of wisdom you is going to emerge.

What this means, is the dark night stage you’re experiencing is a GOOD THING even if it doesn’t feel like it.

What to do about feeling lost and confused

Once again, the best way to get through it is to surrender and wait it out. It’ll pass. The sooner you surrender the faster you’ll speed the process. The faster you’ll get to feeling great again. And when you are feeling great you will be bursting with ideas and inspiration and power!

Surrendering doesn’t sound fun though, does it? Especially when it feels so excruciating when you don’t know what to do. Or if you are depressed. So how do you relieve the mental agony? Here are three tips…

Step 1: Believe in something bigger than yourself

Anytime you feel yourself being pulled down by the negative emotions you’re going through that’s when you have to dig deep and conjure up some major belief. Believe that this stage will pass like all other periods in your life. Emotions are transient. They don’t last forever even it feels like they will.

Believe that when the fog clears you’ll wake up one day with major inspiration. Believe that a more powerful you is emerging. If you’re able to grasp onto these beliefs it will help. If these beliefs don’t work for you think of some empowering ones to have. You might want to simply keep saying to yourself :”this will pass soon”.

Step 2: Be a tad more selfish than usual

Do what you got to do to feel better. That might mean sleeping in one day (or more than just one). It might mean having some alone time away from friends and family. It might mean sitting on the couch watching reality TV and eating some ice cream and crying. Allow yourself to feel the negative emotions. Don’t indulge them but feel them. Let yourself purge. Allow yourself to be imperfect. Let yourself be human.

It’s okay to fall off your “keeping it all together wagon” sometimes. Just don’t get stuck in it. DON’T pity yourself. DON’T be a negative tornado around other people. And communicate with the people you love. Tell them: “I’m feeling a bit directionless and uncertain right now I might need to have more alone time than I usually do so I can work through it”, or “I’m sorting out what’s next for me and it doesn’t feel great. If I’m being too negative please know I’m working through something and it’s not about you. I won’t feel bad if you need some space away from me right now”.

DO take positive actions – like going for a massage or taking a bath – to lesson the emotional sting. Go an get lost in an activity.

Step 3: Ask empowering questions

You’re in control of what you say to yourself and other people. Be aware of what you ask yourself. Most people in a dark night stage find themselves asking questions like:

  • “Why is this happening”
  • “Why me?”
  • “It’s all their fault”
  • “Will this ever end?”
  • “Am I depressed”.

If you ask yourself a disempowering question you will get a disempowering answer. You’ll reinforce your negative swirl.

Instead, ask: What’s next for me?

A better question to ask is: “what’s next for me?”, “Universe (or whatever God you believe in), what would you have me do right now?”. Ask positive questions. And remember: The quality of your questions match the quality of the response you get.

If you’re feeling lost and confused, today take one action forward. Action is the fastest way out of feeling lost. Any action. Action equals new results and it will move you forward when you’re stuck. So, if you cling to any advice in this article let it be this: Take one new action.

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