I've come to the realisation that making space for play is essential. It's how we learn, have new experiences, and create energy for ourselves — that we can channel elsewhere and when needed.

While this may seems obvious in itself, it's very easy for things to drift into a space where every part of your life becomes about results — what started out as a source of fun can soon become sources of pressure — whether that's in work, leisure, or even in how you view yourself.

Just a simple list, can help you to see how the many activities in your life have drifted into something that involves a goal, being measured, or source of pressure:

• Having a hobby become a career

• Playing a sport becomes joining a team and pursuing a high position in the league

• Exercising becomes about constantly reaching new personal bests and gains

And it doesn't need to only be about performance that stops making something enjoyable, the simple act of something becoming routine can be all it takes to stop something being a source of enjoyment — such as listening to the same music or eating the same meal every day.

The way to get back to finding enjoyment in what I'm doing is by making space for 'play' — where the results don't matter, it's okay to make mistakes, it's about the journey not the destination.

As a result, here are a few ways in recent weeks that I've made space for 'play' —

• Introduce spontaneity into your life — everything's an offer, for me it was taking an empty seat on a ceramics class.

• Do your hobby, but do it differently — for me this meant playing football but focusing on having fun, by playing a different position, or trying things you wouldn't normally do.

• Listening to the radio (thanks NTS 👌) instead of Spotify — means music becomes a journey and not routine

• In work, I've consciously made space to experiment and try new things — this week it's been getting to grips with AI prototyping tools (more on this in another article)

• Reading a genre of book you wouldn't normally — be taken somewhere else!

By having a list of options, it's very easy to then find ways and moments to introduce more space and play back into your life.