'God is happiest when his children are at play.'

~ From the movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance ~

In my work as a Life On Purpose coach, in helping my clients to clarify and live true to their life purpose, we go over the top 10 benefits to knowing and living your life purpose. These are the top benefits that others who have clarified their life purpose have reported receiving.

One of the most popular benefits is FUN. Many people want to have more fun in their lives. If you're one who would like to experience more fun in your life, here's one simple strategy that I learned from business coach, Chris Barrow:

Being a recovering workaholic I've found one of the most effective strategies to add more fun to my life is to create a yearlong schedule STARTING with my Rest and Rejuvenation time. Here's how:

Go to your local office supply store and purchase a calendar that shows the full year on one page. Then, using different colored stickers determine what days you will be out of the office. This time will include weekends, holidays and vacation time. I recommend a minimum of 4 weeks of vacation time -- one week each quarter. If that feels like too much of a stretch, simply double the amount of time you're used to taking off. (I'm working up to Chris' schedule of at least 6 weeks per year reserved for R&R)

Then, and only then, schedule in the work days. I highly recommend further delineating your work time into two areas:

1) Days you're working in your business, and

2) Days you're working on your business

For example, as a coach, writer, and speaker, I'm working 'in' my business when I'm coaching people, writing, or speaking. For me, those days are Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I reserve half a day on Fridays and half a day on Mondays to work 'on' my business. During these days, I'm working on the 'big picture' of my vision, meeting with Team LOPI, developing new products and services, etc. The other half days are time off.

Since implementing this plan, I've enjoyed more time off away from work than ever before, in part because my family has supported me in keeping to the schedule, especially the weeks of vacation. At the same time, I'm enjoying my work days more and being far more productive and profitable than when I was allowing my workaholic nature to run the show.

Last point. Stick to your guns on the time off. If something comes during a time you've planned to take off that's simply too good a business opportunity to pass up, don't say yes until you've rescheduled the R&R time, as close to the original time as possible.

By the way, this is one of the key strategies that allows me to live true to my life purpose which is to live an inspired and inspiring life of:

* Purposeful, passionate and playful service

* Mindful abundance balanced with simplicity, and

* Spiritual serenity.

2005 Brad Swift of Life On Purpose Institute, Inc. This article can be reprinted freely online, as long as the entire article and this resource box are included.