Why you should play, no matter your age
Playfulness comes up regularly in my work.
Clients say they want to be more playful, in their work, life or creative endeavours. They admire those who seem to be at ease with messy making; those who create in abstract or imaginative ways; those with the crazy and far out ideas; those who can take leaps of faith and leave the well-trodden path.
With energy and conviction they proclaim their desire for playfulness. Then they go quiet.
Some will say, “I have never been very playful. I wasn’t even a playful child. How can I learn to be playful now, when I didn’t know how to be playful then?” After all, play is one of our most natural states. We don’t need to learn how to play as children. But it is possible that we had to unlearn it to keep ourselves safe.
Others say, “When I was little, I used to love playing, now I no longer know how to get into this state of losing myself in play.” When we dig into this experience, we often uncover the belief that growing up meant becoming serious and taking things seriously'; staying playful in the context of this belief felt like a weakness, a waste of time, a lack of discipline or commitment.
There is usually some sadness in these statements because play is associated with freedom.
Without playful moments our lives can seem rigid, mundane or stale. We feel caught up in too much routine and too many obligations without a chance to escape the seriousness of life even for a few moments.
When we explore this further in coaching, we discover alternatives to being playful.
Some people will say, “I’m not playful, but I’m adventurous. I travelled and took leaps of faith.” Others will say, “I’m not playful but I’m curious, I have three degrees and five different careers, I speak three languages and life abroad.” Someone said, “I’m not playful but I love to experiment, I loved my chemistry kit and nearly set the shed on fire.”
Being playful is an important aspect of being creative. But if the word ‘playful’ doesn’t sit well with you, don’t force it. Try to find an alternative.
As someone who has always been driven by achievement, being playful didn’t come naturally to adult me either. I’d often tell myself that I’ll ‘work loosely’ – that seemed to have done the trick as well as the words curious and experimenting.
What are the qualities of play?
Play needs safety
From a nervous system perspective, play is one of these wonderful, so-called ‘blended’ states. We are mobilised and activated enough to have energy while still feeling safe and socially connected. Play is mobilisation without fear.
As soon as we lose the sense of connection or safety, we can no longer be curious. Play ends and worry or fear take over. We might switch into our fight, flight or freeze response. That’s why a playful ping-pong table in an otherwise unsafe workplace doesn’t do much for staff’s ability to be creative and come up with innovative ideas.
I sometimes wonder whether many of us struggle with being more playful because playing doesn’t feel safe (enough). As adults, this perceived lack of safety is of course rarely about a threat to our lives; it’s about being seen as unproductive, childish, goofy, daydreaming or wasting time. Maybe we worry that the outcome of our playtime might not be good enough; we are fearful of criticism, being shamed, ridiculed or labelled untalented, not working hard enough or not taking things seriously.
In a world that focuses on output, play isn’t always seen as valuable.
As the quality of a process or approach, playfulness is invaluable if you want to reach more innovate or creative outcomes.
I created this as part of an inquiry into professional identity. The topic of my inquiry was serious, yet my approach was playful and as a result this quirky lady is holding more meaning for me than a serious and more cognitive approach could have generated.
Play needs wiggle room
We play when we aren’t rigid, when we free ourselves from expectations, rules or constraints and don’t care whether we’re ‘doing it right’. We let go of prescribed outcomes and engage in our chosen activity purely for the activity’s sake. That doesn’t make play purposeless, it’s just that we don’t pursue a specific and explicit goal.
Cathy Malchiodi PhD (psychologist and expressive arts therapist) talks about the unscripted moments of play which offer opportunities for spontaneity and joyfulness.
Susanna Miller suggested in her book The Psychology of Play that play comes with “an attitude of throwing off constraints” which might be physical, emotional, social or intellectual.
The presence of freedom in play is essential. Freeing ourselves from constraints and feeling free to participate is what makes play possible. The opposite is also true: being or feeling forced to participate puts an immediate stop to play. When play shapeshifts into a habitual, more routine and unconscious activity we also stop reaping the benefits of play.
Throwing off constraints is easy for kids. Often they are not even aware of any constraints and have nothing to throw off. As adults, it’s possible that we need to employ some tricks to sidestep some perceived constraints whether they are ‘doing it well’ or ‘doing it right’, being ‘good’ or hardworking and committed.
If your playfulness is getting disrupted by aiming for perfect, these practices might help to let go a little.
Blind contour drawing: find an easy object to draw or do a self-portrait sitting in front of a mirror. Without looking at your pad, put pencil to paper and draw the object without looking. Top tip: do not lift your pencil off the paper until you’re finished.
Draw, doodle or write with your non-dominant hand – we know that it won’t be straight and can accept flaws and wobbliness more easily.
Work deliberately with clashing or ugly colours. You can’t fault your poor colour choice if you have intentionally chosen ‘ugly’ ones. If visual art isn’t your thing, you can create clashing wardrobe outfits - leaving the house in them is optional!
Restrict time: do a series of 10-second drawings. 10x10-second cats for example. It’s fun to work against the clock, and when we create in this short burst we expect to not finish or refine our creation. Instead our cats will be quirky and wobbly, missing the tail and we might feel just a little bit lighter.
Creating fantasy creatures or scenes with collage is another way to play for anyone who isn’t into drawing or painting. The late Eric Carle comes to mind (who doesn’t know his wonderful book The Hungry Caterpillar!?). He said:
“My pictures are collages. […] Many children have done collages at home or in their classrooms. In fact, some children have said to me, “Oh, I can do that.” I consider this the highest compliment.”
This collage has been made using my non-dominant hand (I’m doing this as my 100-Day Project this year, and on day 64/100 my non-dominant hand has had a lot of chance to practice and it’s getting better at cutting out simple shapes.
The benefits of play: why you should have play in your life, no matter your age
Play is a way of feeling alive.
Play helps us get into a state of flow and experience the inner harmony of being energised and safely connected with ourselves and others around us. Play often involves more than one sense; there are materials, textures, colours or shapes we interact with, there might be movement, it might involve music or other sounds. This multi-sensory experience connects us with our bodies and with the present moment; we can get out of our heads and stop trying to think three steps ahead to stay on top of things.
Playful moments are restorative moments.
Renewal is something many of us don’t have or make enough time for, even though it’s such an important aspect of dealing with change - whether that’s change we’re initiating or whether we’re adapting to the changing world around us. We might think of restorative moments as quiet moments or times where we (our bodies and brains) come to rest. But there’s great restorative potential in activity if it comes with the key qualities of play: free, spontaneous, unscripted, quirky, detached from a specific purpose or outcome.
Play makes shifts happen.
The abandonment of constraints in play is a catalyst for deep shifts in someone’s life, their emotional or behavioural patterns, in how they experience themselves and the external world. Play is a basic ingredient in creativity, it doesn’t necessarily create an artefact (whether that’s a painting or a new product), but play creates possibilities.
Once we free ourselves from constraints and transcend our familiar ways of being in the world imagining completely new possibilities becomes possible. We might even try these new possibilities on for size, in a series of experiments, for example when we explore career transitions, relocating abroad, a tree change, or transitioning into a new life chapter.
If you would like to explore creative reflective processes to reconnect with some playfulness, my next group program Creative Reflections starts 5th June 2025.
Sensemaking Studio is a series of four-month online programs to cultivate a reflective practice in a small group of 6 like-minded Sense Makers.
Each program can be booked individually or you can create your own longer-term program by joining more than one. In each Studio group, we’ll focus on a specific modality, theme or framework to shape and cultivate a personal and sustainable reflective practice.
In Creative Reflections you'll enrich your reflective practice with arts-based approaches.
It doesn’t matter whether you have a creative practice or any experience with artmaking. The Creative Reflections Studio is a place to be curious about creative processes as a different form of inquiry and self-expression.
The program starts on Thursday 5th June and finishes on 4th September 2025.
You will join 4 online live sessions (on Zoom, each session is between 1.5-2 hours long).
In-between our live sessions you'll receive video prompts to deepen your practice with self-paced reflective experiments. During the 4-month program, you also get free access to monthly drop-in studio sessions to experiment with some loose guidance from me.
This program is for anyone who wants to start or deepen their reflective practice and create the conditions for meaning, success, change, joy, rest, connection… whatever it is you seek more of.