5 ways to bring spontaneity back.

You’re stuck. Tired. Can’t be bothered.

Remember when we used to pop in to friends’ houses? Unannounced. No setting up the meeting via text message. No ten minute SMS warning. ‘I’m on my way!’ We’d just turn up and maybe take a chance that they weren’t home.

Spontaneity is about taking risks. It might not eventuate quite as you’d thought, but you’re open to possibility. Being spontaneous doesn’t have to mean upheaval, it can instead be a pleasant surprise or a portal to something fresh and new. An injection of positivity.

Here are 5 ways you can bring it back into your life (there are many more ways, of course – but this is a start).

• Do the opposite of what you’ve planned.

So you’ve got the day or the next couple of hours mapped out. We’re programmed as humans to organise, set aside time, look forward with tasks and activities to achieve. Don’t do any of this. Go in the opposite direction. Instead of hanging out the clothes, read the next chapter of that book that’s been hovering. Instead of eating dinner in front of the TV, set the table with candles and delicious crockery to display your midweek bangers and mash. Goodbye plans.

• Call someone from your long list of phone contacts.

You’ve probably got numbers saved on your mobile phone that you haven’t called in ages. Old work colleagues, second cousins, friends that have floated away (for no other reason than life sometimes works that way), your daughter’s friend’s mother, an old neighbour and more. Choose one of them. Call them. Remake a connection or as a once off. Leave a message. Just because.

• Do something you don’t want to do.

I don’t mean something dangerous or life threatening. Just a thing you’ve been putting off because it’s tedious, dull, too energetic, requires you to have a difficult conversation or face a situation you’ve been trying to avoid. Go on. Take a deep breath.

• Cook something new – now.

What’s hiding in the back of the pantry? Throw together a few things and prepare a meal (or snack). Find a recipe online or create your own. Try something you’ve never cooked or put together before. Your household might thank you (or then again maybe they won’t) and you might find you’re actually more accomplished in the kitchen than you thought.

• Wear something fancy that you’ve been saving for a special occasion.

Following along the lines of the ‘putting the bin out in your finery’ movement, this is extending it further to anything you’re doing. Shopping, laundry, walking around the park, or flicking through your cookbook. You don’t need to take a photo or post it, let it be just for the moment (and a startling one at that for those watching). You’ll be surprised at how you feel.

Of course, this non-exhaustive list is a case of ‘do what I say and not what I do’.

But this time, I might just take my own advice.