🛝 Make your work your play and your play your work

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“Make work your play and play your work.”

This quote by the great basketball coach, Phil Jackson, exemplifies a core Move to Improve belief: We don’t play enough.

As a basketball coach of many of the greatest players (Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant among them!), Coach Jackson knows a thing or two about greatness. When he speaks, especially on coaching philosophy, we should probably listen.

Granted, the “work” his players did is technically “playing” a “game.” So the analogy is especially easy for athletes to get. But I’d argue it can apply to any of us, whether we make millions playing sports or make ~not millions~ at a “regular job” and play sports on the weekends.

How to make your work your play:

Your day job may be your dream job. But if you’re like most people, it may not be how you’d choose to spend 40ish of your weekly waking hours if you had complete freedom with your time. Many of us even dread our work days. High-stress environments, fast pace, feeling undervalued, or even boredom at work can all take a toll on our health—physical and mental. I believe that if we can make our work more playful, our health—and our life satisfaction—would benefit.

Gamify things

• The Pomodoro technique (25 min work, 5 min rest) can help you get your head in the game. If you’ve got a sedentary office-style job, you can start a little friendly competition among coworkers to see who can get the most steps in during the day. Or make it more communal and take regular and post-lunch walking breaks.

Spread joy and kindness among your coworkers

• Bring some breakfast foods to the office on a random day. Get involved in planning office parties or celebrating birthdays. Join a fantasy league with coworkers. Take advantage of holiday shenanigans like Halloween costumes, Secret Santa, etc. Go out for dinner, drinks, games, or pickleball after work.

How to make your play your work:

For the purposes of this article, we’ll refer to “play” as any physical activity, sports, exercise, etc. that you engage in for enjoyment.

“Drew?!” you may ask, “Why the heckin’ heck would I wanna make my play more like work?!”

Lemme tell ya, incredulous reader.

If you play a sport for a living, it’s easy to see. But if you’re a weekend warrior, aspiring 5k runner, CrossFit fiend, yogi, bodybuilder, everyday weightlifter, late night volleyballer, or anything else, a few qualities we generally apply to work may actually benefit your play.

Discipline & Consistency

• If you only participate in physical activity when you feel like it, the irregularity and lack of consistency is undoubtedly hurting any progress you may hope to make. Showing up regularly, on schedule, like clockwork, whether you feel motivated to or not, can result in incredible progress over time. And you know what progress leads to? Fulfillment, satisfaction, healthy pride, and joy.

Goals & Plans

• If you walk in the gym and sling some weights around all willy nilly without any clear purpose, you may be missing out on most of the benefits that training can actually provide. Our bodies adapt to the demands placed on them, but if you’re always doing the same thing, your body and health aren’t really going to improve any further. That’s typically a recipe for boredom and de-motivation. On the contrary, having short-, medium-, and long-term goals can keep you on track, motivated, and excited to work toward an ultimate result. Whether that’s a race, body composition, tournament, or any other goal, working toward something with a “deadline” can give us the extra kick we need to continue improving ourselves. Get on a solid program for whatever your “play” is and dedicate two to six months to working toward an outcome.

• If you’d like help developing any kind of plan/program around fitness, exercise, activity, and your health, hit me up! I’d be happy to work with you. Just reply to this email.

Mission, Purpose, & Fulfillment

• Sometimes, play can just be play, and it doesn’t need structure or end games to be net positive. There’s nothing wrong with play for the sake of play. And, putting a bit or purpose into it can reap benefits as well. I’ve written before about doing what you love in regards to exercise and not sweating (pun intended) the stuff you hate. We often hear “Do what you love,” in regards to work, but it’s important to apply that to play as well! That’s not to say we shouldn’t try difficult things that push us past our comfort zone. And some forms of exercise are going to be more physically beneficial than others. But what will keep you coming back—which is ultimately what’s most important—is doing what you love. Find activity that lights you up and brings you joy. Double down on that and shed what isn’t giving you life.

Ultimately, it’d be great if everything we did could both bring us joy and be productive for ourselves and society. Your work and your play may each only be doing one of those for now, but with a little intentionality, both can certainly start to give you a little bit of playfulness and progress.

Kobe and MJ both had a passion, fire, and joy that is rarely found in even the greatest athletes. They took their sport more seriously than most could ever imagine. “Mamba mentality” was coined to describe Kobe for a reason. But at the same time, both found incredible joy and play in what they did. They had countless smiles, laughs, and tongue-all-the-way-out dunks to prove it. Few would argue that these greats didn’t find joy and fulfillment in their incredibly expert-level work.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from the GOATs. Make your work your play, and make your play your work. 🐐 

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: Brainstorm one way to make your work more playful this week, and go do that.

Level 2: Figure out how to add some structure, discipline, or purpose to your play. Hit me up if you’d like some help or ideas!

Level 3: Do both!

This newsletter is brought to you by… me!

Interested in becoming a sponsor? Know someone else who might be? I’d love to get to know you and/or your business and see how we can partner together. Reply to this email!

✍️ Drew's Picks:

• Read: When the Sacrifice Outweighs Your Reward, another banger by Money with Katie. It’s written with finances in mind, but applies to work, play, and exercise too!

Thanks for reading! If you have any feedback, thoughts, or suggestions on future topics, let me know! I’ll read every email. 📧 

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).