The Case for PLAY: Why Joy Is a Performance Strategy
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
How a tutu, a sled, and hill repeats became a reminder that play isn’t extra — it’s essential.
There’s a subtle narrative many of us absorbed somewhere along the way:
Be productive.
Be serious.
Be efficient.
Especially when it comes to career, daily living or training.
But lately I’ve been asking a different question:
What if play isn’t a distraction from progress —
what if it’s part of the pathway?
Recently, I took a workout that’s objectively challenging — hill repeats — and added a little experiment.
A tutu.
A sled.
A friend.
A dog.
The workout didn’t become easier.
But it felt lighter.
I laughed more.
I felt more motivated.
I finished energized instead of depleted.
And it reminded me of something I’ve known for a long time.
Where This Belief Comes From
Before The Desert Dose, before retreats and workshops, I spent decades teaching physical education with one central aspiration: help young people discover joyful movement they would carry across their lifespan.
That meant organizing school-wide events with hundreds of kids — and teachers — showing up in costumes, moving, laughing, and connecting.
What I saw over and over again was simple:
When people play, something shifts.
When people play together, the shift is exponential.
We become more present.
More open.
More connected.
And now we understand more of the "why."
Play stimulates the neurochemistry associated with well-being and motivation — dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins — what we call your DOSE.
It can reduce perceived effort, increase intrinsic motivation and build emotional resilience.
In other words, play isn’t just fun.
It’s functional.
Why Adults Need Play Most
Somewhere along the way, many of us received the message that play belongs to childhood — that adulthood is about responsibility, structure, and productivity.
But play is not something we outgrow.
It's something we forget.
And when we forget it, performance often becomes heavier.
Because play helps us:
Access creativity
Reduce stress
Sustain motivation
Strengthen connection
Feel more alive
And perhaps most importantly — play reconnects us to possibility.
Joy at Every Level — Even the Olympics
If you watched the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, you witnessed this on a global stage.
Alysa Liu captured gold in women’s figure skating for Team USA — the country’s first Olympic title in the event since 2002 — after returning from a retirement just a few years prior.
What stood out wasn’t only the technical brilliance of her performance.
It was her energy.
Her free skate was widely described as joyful, expressive, alive. It didn’t feel mechanical. It felt embodied. Joy wasn't separate from performance. It was fueling it.
From playgrounds to hill repeats to the Olympic stage, the same truth appears:
When we feel connected, expressive, and present, we unlock something deeper than effort alone.
Joy is not the opposite of discipline. It amplifies it.
The JOY HIIT Experiment
That hill repeat workout wasn’t about being silly for the sake of it. It was about exploring how joy changes the experience of effort. When we bring curiosity, humor, or creativity into something hard, our brains interpret the stress differently.
Effort feels more meaningful.
Resilience increases.
Motivation becomes intrinsic instead of forced.
This is the essence of what I call JOY HIIT — not a different workout, but a different energy.
What PLAY Can Look Like
Play doesn’t have to mean costumes (unless you want it to).
It might look like:
• Trying something new
• Moving with friends
• Celebrating small wins
• Adding music that lights you up
• Letting yourself be imperfect
• Following curiosity
Play is less about what you do — and more about how you do it.
Try This THIS WEEK
Pick one activity that feels like a chore and ask yourself:
➡️ How can I make this 10% more playful?
Maybe it’s inviting a friend.
Maybe it’s music.
Maybe it’s celebrating effort instead of outcome.
Notice how your energy shifts when you move from:
“I have to” → “I get to.”
Small changes can create powerful momentum.
A Permission Slip for You
You don’t need to earn joy.
You don’t need permission to enjoy your life.
But sometimes it helps to see it written down.
Because the goal isn’t just to perform better.
It’s to feel more alive during each moment.
At The Desert Dose, this is the heart of our work — helping people reconnect with confidence, connection, and joy.
Possibility opens when we let ourselves play.
If you’re craving more creativity, resilience, or lightness in how you move and live, this is exactly the work we explore together:
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