Prompt #75 - Take Your Inner Child To Work Day

Bring some playful joy to your work tomorrow

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Photo by Filip Urban on Unsplash

I believe that a lot of our stress and anxiety in life comes from taking things too seriously, from giving them too much importance. Having struggled with my fair share of anxiety in the past, I remember how afraid I used to be. Afraid of messing up, afraid of disappointing people, afraid of not meeting expectations.

I also know that today, I don’t remember 99% of the things that I lost sleep over. Why? Because they probably weren’t that important to begin with.

Don’t get me wrong! I believe in doing your best possible work and trying to be the best version of yourself, living true to your values. But I also believe that not everything is a life or death matter, and that often, you get to be your best self if you allow yourself to experiment, to play, and to explore.

Like you used to do as a child…

The Activity: Take your inner child to work

Step 1 - Think WWYICD

First, take a moment to get into the mind of your inner child. Close your eyes and recall some of your favourite activities and memories from childhood. Did you used to draw, dance, or sing a lot? Or maybe you and your friends spent the entire day riding your bikes around? Or you played an instrument? Books? Video games? That best of all days with your family at the lake?

Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash

Now that you’re in your happy kid mind, think about your job. Similar to Tom Hank’s movie BIG, if your 8-year old self were suddenly stuck in your adult body and had to go to work tomorrow, what would they do? Think about your work place, the objects to be found there, the tools of your trade, the ingredients of your day-to-day. What would kid-you do with them?

How would they play, explore, and have fun? Keep it in your mind or journal it down.

Step 2 - Draw it

Make a drawing based on your reflection. You can do some simple doodles, or a sketch, or even draw a little comic of kid-you going to work.

And tomorrow, as you return to your actual grown-up work, maybe keep that little kid in mind and see if there are ways you can inject some playfulness into your work.

My Example

This was a fun exercise for me. I work in advertising, as did my parents. I remember hanging out in their agency offices after school.

I always wanted to play with all the art supplies in the studio (how I yearned for those perfectly aligned sets of Copic markers), glue all the things with spray glue, write “important things” on the old '90s typewriters, and use the computer—especially the animate feature in PowerPoint—to tell stories.

Even though my work normally happens exclusively on a computer, I’ll put some of my markers on my work desk tomorrow and see what I can do with them. Even though it’s still not a full set of Copics, unfortunately.

Have a playful week, my friends.

Love, Lorena