5 Joyful Activities to Start Doing Today

Do you feel like your joy has been hard to find lately? Like all you do is work and take care of things around the house, only taking breaks for sustenance when needed?

When we’re young and spirited, practicing joyful activities is what life is all about! But as we get older and the responsibilities of adulthood begin to sink in, we often forget that joy is a necessary part of life – both outside and inside of the home.

If you’ve forgotten how to schedule time for joyful activities in your life, this guide is for you! We’re encouraging you to reclaim your joy with these 5 easy and bliss-producing activities. It’s time to put the computer down, stop checking your emails, and sprinkle some fun back into your life.

By incorporating one or all of these activities into your life, you’ll begin to realize how important joy is – and how much you’ve been missing it!

5 Joyful Activities to Start Doing Today

For the following list of joyful activities, we’ve chosen those that speak to adults while maintaining a sense of childlike wonder and innocence. Keep reading if you’re ready to start infusing your life with joy today.

1. Bring Colors into Your Life

Remember what it was like as a kid to receive a new coloring book and a shiny new pack of crayons or markers? The possibilities were endless: In one hand, you have all the colors of the rainbow to express whatever you’re feeling in the moment, and in the other, a world to make your own.

You may already be aware of the health benefits associated with coloring, which include:

• Reduced stress and anxiety
• Increased focus
• Improved motor skills
• Better sleep
• Enhanced vision

But the most important factor here is the fun one. Coloring is just fun! It allows you to explore your imagination, to connect to that inner child who just wanted to splatter color over each page. Don’t worry about composition or staying inside the lines – just let yourself loose and feel the joy.

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2. Infuse Your Workouts with Joy

When it comes to exercise, we’ve been led down a path that often leads to a negative attitude towards moving our bodies. We think of exercise as something we have to do to maintain physical fitness and health, rather than an enjoyable activity that we used to love as children.

Remember running around in the backyard for no reason other than to see how fast you were? Or riding your bike through the neighborhood just to get some sunshine and spend time with your friends? How about that game of tag that always ended in an exhausted giggle fit?

It’s time to take the “shoulds” and “have-to” out of exercise and focus more on “want.” What does your body want to do? What type of movement would feel good? Maybe it’s something as simple as a deep stretch, or perhaps the activity that makes your light eyes up with joy is something more retro, like roller skating.

The point here is to infuse your physical activity with joy and do the things that make your body and your mind feel good, rather than thinking of it as a chore or in terms of calories burnt. Run around the block, do cartwheels in your yard, or have a good old game of tag with your friends. Do what brings a smile to your face and oxygen into your lungs and bloodstream!

3. Practice an Attitude of Gratitude

One of the most effective ways to feel happier is by practicing gratitude for the things that already bring you joy. This works in two ways, the first being that practicing gratitude helps you notice and be aware of how many joyful things are already a part of your life. And when you begin to notice these things more frequently and intentionally, you’ll start to realize that joy is all around you.

The second major benefit of practicing gratitude is that the Universe is more excited about sending blessings and abundance your way when you’re grateful for what you already have. Showing the Universe that you appreciate what you’ve been given, the joy you receive each day encourages it to shower you with even more blissed-out experiences.

4. Romanticize Your Life

We all get the sense at least once in our lives that life is like a movie. And in many ways, it is – after all, most movies are modeled after real-life experiences. So why not really embody that movie magic? It’s time to start romanticizing your life by living it like a movie! Adults need space to play and pretend just as much as children do, and this method can be both joyful and productive.

When you pour your morning coffee, gazing out of your window or enjoying it on the porch, in the sunlight – imagine how you’d feel seeing that scene play out on the big screen. Sometimes movies seem magical simply because they’re happening outside of yourself, so try to shift your perspective and view the scene from the point of a fascinated audience. How beautiful is that morning latte you’ve made yourself? How mellifluous is the sound of birds chirping outside your window, waiting to greet you as they do the morning?

Try creating your own theme music and play it on your way to work. Choose a song that embodies your personality, strengths, and desires, and crank it up! This boosts your confidence, the very confidence needed to “believe your life is worthy of a film adaptation.” Because it is!

Believing you have a story to tell, living your life with the same sense of romance that the Big Screen emanates fills you with a sense of joy and motivation to keep living bigger and better.

5. Reward Yourself for Hard Work

Remember receiving a gold star as a kid for a job well done? How about that delicious dessert you’d get for finishing all of your vegetables? Sometimes we have to do things in life that we don’t particularly love, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t reward ourselves for hard, less-than-fun work.

If you’re struggling with a deadline, lacking motivation, try to think of a treat you can give yourself upon completion – whether it’s an extra hour of binging your favorite TV series, indulging in an ooey-gooey brownie, or soaking in a relaxing bubble bath.

If you have a hard time motivating yourself to exercise, try envisioning the post-workout smoothie you’ll reward yourself with, or even that blueberry muffin. Life is all about balance, which means balancing work and play. And rewarding yourself for your hard work is just another form of joyful play!

You deserve it.

How Can You Infuse More Joy Into Your Life?

Life shouldn’t be all about working hard and chasing success – we also need to make time for joy because there is so much joy all around us. If you just begin to seek joy and make it an active part of your daily life, you’ll realize how magical life really is.

What activities bring you the most joy?

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