How to Find the Funny in Any Situation

You may be familiar with the Five Stages of Grief, but are you familiar with the Four Stages of Finding the Funny? These Four Stages are especially important when paired with the Five Stages of Grief, and help us turn those painful situations we grief from into joyful memories that we laugh at. In this article I’m going to share these Four Stages of Finding the Funny and how to use them for yourself!

One of our core four principles at IMPROVE is to take everything as a gift. Everything is an opportunity to learn and grow. In improv, we need to practice this principle because we’re creating scenes from scratch, with no script, so every word, motion, facial expression, awkward silence when treated as a gift, creates an opportunity to discover something new in the scene.

In life, we’re figuring it out as we go along. There are rarely correct answers. When we let go of trying to be right, and instead, focus on taking in what’s happening as a gift of information, that frees us to make important discoveries about ourselves, our teams, our products, our companies, and our communities.

Though this mindset can be particularly hard when faced with tragedy, hardship, or name that event that has happened in 2020… it’s even more powerful. When we turn our tragedies into comedies we are turning pain into healing, sadness into joy, and grief into hope. Humor is healing (so much so, there’s an entire book written about it!) and when we have the tools to use humor to heal we become so much more resilient and joyful.

Here’s a way to practice this no mistakes mindset and learn to find joy and funny from any situation:

Acknowledge what has happened 

Acknowledge what has been said, done, or thought. And acknowledging the feelings around it. Sometimes that means expressing the painful emotions associated with whatever happened. Have a good cry, scream into a pillow, express whatever is there! (This is saying “yes”)

For example: I passed out after my sister got her wisdom teeth pulled. One sight of the gauze and I was out. I face planted in the hallway, and awoke to a busted lip and scar under my eye. So, yeah, that happened. It was painful, embarrassing, and scary.

Take action

Rather than beat yourself (or others) up about it (Because guess what? That doesn’t solve the problem), instead, take action. Apologize if you said something offensive. Fix the bug you discovered. Correct the typos. Clean up the spilled milk. Get up off the ground after slipping on a banana peel. I hope you’re getting the idea here! Taking action also involves telling anyone who needs to know about the situation. Sharing with others is more encouraged when the entire team is practicing the “no mistakes mindset”. (This is the “and” of “Yes, and”)

For example: When I came back conscious I rested in the chair, drank some of the best orange juice I’ve ever drank at a medical office, and did my best to enjoy the attention from staff, family, and strangers in the waiting room.

Learn from it

Consider what happened, ask yourself “What can I learn from this? What will I do going forward now that I know this/experienced this?” This is the final step of the magic of turning mistakes into gifts and opportunities and is key to making the mistake a learning opportunity. (This is the bonus “and” of “Yes, and”)

Find the funny

Once we have acknowledged the situation, taken action, and learned from it, as part of that learning we can find the funny. Doing this involves looking at the situation in a different way. Taking a new perspective, an objective third party perspective, looking down and watching the movie of your life. When we step away from the situation and view it as an observer, it’s so much easier to find the humor! Spilled milk can evoke anger and frustration OR it can evoke laughter and joy. It’s all up to us and how we look at the situation!

For example: When I moved past the initial pain, embarrassment, and fear, I could find the funny in this situation. First, the irony. I wasn’t even the person getting oral surgery and I was the person who fainted! This incident happened soon before an improv comedy immersion I participated in at The Second City in Chicago, back in 2010. Improv certainly helped me find the funny, and I had fun trying out different funny stories when asked how I got the scar under my eye!

Sometimes finding the funny takes time! Days, weeks, months, years even! Depending on the event, our reaction to it, and how smoothly we move through these Four Stages of Finding the Funny. Be patient with yourself!

I hope you’ll say “yes, and” try this out next time you find yourself focusing on the hardship, the challenges, the errors, the mistakes, the pain. These steps help us move past it and find the fun and joy, so that we don’t get stuck in the doldrums. And let me tell you, having been in the doldrums and in the joy, the funny, joyful place is so much nicer to be!

If you want help finding the funny in your life, please contact me and let’s improve it with improv comedy!

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Improve improves leaders, teams, companies and impact using a unique methodology combining improv comedy techniques with high performance coaching, research-backed frameworks, performance techniques, and decades of experience. Improve was created by entrepreneur, improv comedian, and former venture capital investor, Mary Lemmer. Learn more about our training and Mary’s background on our website.