There’s a reason why girls just wanna have fun… and I’m convinced it’s because having fun is low-key the best manifestation tool you have. I’m using it on one of my biggest goals right now. I want to get monetized on YouTube by the end of this year, which means reaching 4,000 watch hours. I’m aiming for the end of the year so I have about a month of wiggle room if I need it.
Honestly, I’m very confident I won’t need that wiggle room, because I’m having so much fun doing this. Whenever I have fun, I make more money, I manifest faster and things just fall into place. So if your manifestation process feels like doing homework, you’re probably blocking yourself in ways you don’t even realize, and there’s research to back this up (we’ll get to it in a minute).
If you’d rather watch than read, the full video is right here:
Why “work hard for what you want” keeps you stuck
Let’s start with this idea that we have to work hard to get what we want. In theory, it’s well-intentioned, because it’s encouraging us to get off the couch and actually do something with our lives, right?
But especially in America, where I’m from, it’s been taken way too far. It gets ingrained in everyone’s minds from a young age (mine included) that we have to push and grind for what we want, and that we have to suffer a little to actually enjoy the fruits of our labor. Everything we’ve been taught about grinding and “productivity equals success” keeps us compliant with a system that was designed for us to lose, and none of it is actually built to benefit us as individuals.
A more empowering belief is that we get to make money, and get everything we want in this world, by having fun doing it. That’s the belief I’m building my YouTube goal on, and it’s the one I want to hand to you today.
If you’re new here, I’m Samantha. I was a marketing consultant for five years, and now I create content about systemized manifestation, which means taking all the good manifestation knowledge we have and pairing it with modern technology like AI to help us collapse timelines. Today, we’re collapsing timelines by having more fun, and I’ll give you a ChatGPT prompt at the end so you can actually put it into practice.
If you’re ready to let go of the grind version of manifesting and want a whole community of women doing this with you, come join us inside Paid to Be Her. It’s free.
What the research says about enjoying your goals
On YouTube, I’m having so much fun filming. It feels easy to show up and talk to y’all, so I keep doing it. For me, having fun is a strategy, and there’s actually research that backs this up.
Researchers at the University of Chicago looked at people who had made New Year’s resolutions, the typical things like paying off debt or working out. Two months later, they checked in and asked the participants two things about their goal: how enjoyable it was and how important it was. How important the goal felt predicted whether people expected to stick with it, and how much they enjoyed it predicted who actually did stick with it (Woolley & Fishbach, 2017).
Picture two girls with the same goal. The first one hates mornings, but she signs up for the 6:00 AM boot camp because she thinks it’s what she should do, and she’s miserable every single day. The second one goes to a pole dancing class with her best friend, and they’re cracking jokes and laughing the whole time. Two months later, I bet you can guess which one is still consistent with that habit.
Decide what you actually want
For you, this means deciding what you actually want, even when it’s different from what you think you should do. What’s your deep desire? What do you genuinely enjoy doing? Be really honest with yourself here, because so many of us go through life doing what we should do because a best friend or our parents or whoever said so. The version you enjoy is the one you’re going to keep doing.
Here’s another example of what choosing the thing you enjoy looks like. Let’s say we have two business owners: one loves making videos, and the other loves writing emails. They’re two totally different personalities (one’s extroverted and one’s introverted), and they can both still get clients. If the email girl writes absolutely killer emails, she isn’t going to get fewer clients than the one who makes videos. It all comes down to the individual person and what she enjoys.
3 ways to bring more fun into any goal
So how do you actually bring more fun into your goals? Here are the three ways I’m using right now.
1) Pick the fun version
Choose the version of the goal you actually enjoy. This one’s pretty easy, and it’s everything we just talked about: the pole class over the boot camp, the videos over the emails (or the emails over the videos, if that’s your thing). When you have a choice in how you get there, pick the path that sounds fun to you.
2) Make the boring parts cozy
Integrate play into the boring parts. Some parts of every goal are boring, like invoicing, accounting and budgeting. I do not like doing any of that, so I find ways to make it fun. Make it cozy. Pour a glass of wine while you look at your numbers, because no one’s stopping you from doing that, you know?
You can romanticize even the most boring, mundane parts of your life, and you should, because that’s how you get through them. Get some inspiration from Pinterest: a cute iced coffee, a cute notebook, a cute cafe, an empanada, whatever you want. (I said empanadas because I’m in Panamá, and we have really good empanadas here.) The task stays the same, but it feels a lot lighter because you’re pairing it with something that feels like play.
3) Turn it into a game
Make your goal a game you can win. I’m treating my 4,000 hours on YouTube like a game, because every new video is like a new level, a new opportunity to add to that goal. Every new comment counts too, positive or negative, and I’ve got some haters out there… LOL. If you look at my YouTube Shorts, I’ve actually got lots of them, and I love them all, because the positive and the negative comments both help me reach more people and get more engagement. It’s all good things for me, and that’s the mindset you’ve gotta have.
When you track your progress and celebrate your wins, your brain starts looking forward to the next one, and that keeps you motivated along the way.
A ChatGPT prompt for when a goal feels like a chore
This is the prompt I use whenever I have a goal that doesn’t feel fun or exciting on its own. Copy it into ChatGPT and fill in your goal where the brackets are:
“I’m working toward [your goal], and I want it to feel fun instead of like a chore.
Ask me these questions one at a time, and wait for my answer before you ask the next one:
1. What parts of working on this goal do I already enjoy?
2. Which parts do I dread or keep putting off?
3. What do I love doing in general, even outside of this goal?
After I answer all three, give me: two or three fun ways to reach this goal that fit what I enjoy, one way to make each part I dread feel lighter, and a simple game I can play to track my progress, with a small reward for each milestone.”
Question one shows you what’s already working, and question two helps you name the parts that drain you. Question three is the really important one, because it shows you the things outside of your goal that you already love, so you can bring them into the boring parts. It’s super easy and super fun, and you’ll walk away with all three of the ways from this post built around your own life.
Get the free Manifest with ChatGPT workbook
If you want to get really clear on what you want before you make it fun, my free workbook, Manifest with ChatGPT, takes my whole manifestation process for collapsing time and guides you through it with AI prompts you can use with ChatGPT, Claude or your AI tool of choice. Start with the desire stack, because it helps you find a desire that really excites you, and that’s the easiest kind of goal to make fun.
Here’s what’s inside:
- The setup prompt that tells ChatGPT who you are and what you’re calling in, so it stops handing you generic answers.
- My 5-part prompt formula, so you can write your own prompts (like your own version of the fun prompt above) that sound like you.
- 6 prompt stacks for desire, belief, evidence, identity leaks, behavior and feedback. The desire stack is the one I’d start with for this post.
- A follow-up toolkit for going deeper when ChatGPT’s first answer isn’t quite it.
- Notes pages so your answers, your game and your wins live in one place.
Pop your email in below and it’s yours.
FAQ
1) Can having fun really help you manifest?
In my experience, yes. Whenever I’m having fun, I show up more easily, I keep going and things fall into place faster. The research lines up with that too: in a study of New Year’s resolutions, how much people enjoyed their goal predicted who was still sticking with it two months later.
2) What if my goal is boring?
Most goals have boring parts. Keep the task the same and change how it feels: make it cozy, pair it with something you love (a cute iced coffee, a cafe, a glass of wine while you look at your numbers) and romanticize it a little.
3) How do I turn a goal into a game?
Give yourself levels and a way to keep score. Every video, sale or workout is a new level, and every step forward adds to your total. Track your progress where you can see it, and pick a small reward for each milestone so your brain looks forward to the next one.
4) Is choosing the fun version just being lazy?
No. You’re still showing up, and you’re choosing a version of the goal you’ll actually keep doing. Enjoying your goal is what keeps you going, and keeping going is what makes it happen.
5) What’s the best ChatGPT prompt to make a goal more fun?
Use the one above. It asks you what you already enjoy, what you dread and what you love outside of the goal, then gives you fun ways to reach it, a way to make each dreaded part lighter and a simple game with rewards.
Here’s what I want you to take away…
Enjoying your goal is what keeps you going, and keeping going is what makes it happen. That’s the simplest way I can put it. Pick the fun version, make the boring parts fun, and then turn it into a game. When you do, collapsing your timeline toward your manifestation gets so much easier, and it flows in with a lot less resistance. Life is short, and we get to have more fun, right? You get to be the woman who reaches her goals because she’s enjoying the way there.
I’d love to know what goal you’re going to make more fun this week. DM me on Instagram at @SamanthaLeeWarren and tell me, because I want to cheer you on. 💙
And if you want to support me on my goal of 4,000 watch hours, come hang out with me on YouTube. I’m having the best time getting there, and I would love for you to come along on the journey with me.
Pin me to your favorite Pinterest board!
