How to Develop a Sense of Humor

A sense of humor is a magnet. It draws people in, every time, with almost no exceptions. In this article I won't try to make you laugh. Instead I'll look — from a director's point of view — at what you actually have to do to build this ability. Because a sense of humor can be developed, exactly like charisma or any other human capacity rooted in inner states and inner processes.

The ABCs of being funny

One of the writers behind The Office once said that a sense of humor, much like writing, is never something you can declare "finished" — there's no point where you've mastered it for good. It's also hard to learn because one person's favourite series is another person's worst film ever. It can be genuinely difficult to tell whether what you're doing is working or falling flat.

The fix is the same as in any craft. If you're a professional basketball player, you watch basketball films, study games, train, and talk shop with other professionals. If you want to develop humor, you do the equivalent: watch comedies and stand-up, read comic writing and comedy blogs, surround yourself with people chasing the same goal, and write your own sketches.

So the first recommendation is to read high-quality comic literature. A few timeless places to start:

• Ilf and Petrov, The Twelve Chairs
• François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel
• Anton Chekhov's short stories

Humor lives in language

The first thing taught about developing a sense of humor in drama school is that humor lives in linguistic space. In other words, growing your sense of humor is directly tied to deepening your command of language and enriching your vocabulary. How could you ever find or invent funny words, phrases and turns of speech if you simply lack the raw material? If you have nothing to combine, you have nothing to work with.

Tricks borrowed from the stand-up greats

Watch how professional comedians actually generate laughs, and a handful of repeatable techniques emerge:

1. Quote funny people. Quoting a sharp line or a funny voice is a great way to invite "guests" into your talk and borrow their comedic energy.
2. Use self-irony. You can always laugh at yourself. Be less forgiving of yourself than of any other character in your story — that openness is disarming and likeable.
3. Keep a comedy journal. Jot down or sketch every funny observation you notice. The act of recording trains you to spot comic nuance in the first place.
4. Embrace the weird. Lean into strange, awkward experiences instead of hiding them — they're a rich source of material.
5. Be funny without telling jokes. Make people laugh even when they can't quite say what they're laughing at: misuse language on purpose, break the audience's expectations, and push an idea to its absurd extreme.
6. Play with everyday tools. Voice assistants, autocorrect and translation apps will happily produce surreal, funny results. Mess around with them and harvest the gold.

Everyday habits that build the muscle

Beyond study, humor is trained by how you live day to day. Three simple practices:

1. Adopt a small daily ritual to open your workday — something light and slightly playful. One talk-show host famously starts each show by tossing mints in the air and catching them in her mouth.
2. Build games into your relationships. Any games at all. For example: one person names any language in the world, and the other has to "speak" in that accent for the next minute.
3. Let yourself think like a child now and then. Give yourself permission to be silly — sing far too loudly in the car, or play with exaggerated voices. Silliness is where a lot of comic instinct is rehearsed.

New comedy formats at work

Humor isn't just for the stage anymore. Failure stories, personal "fuck-up" tales and short stand-up sets are vivid, effective formats that are increasingly showing up in corporate and academic settings. Stand-up is one of the hardest communication formats there is, yet companies are gradually weaving it into how teams connect.

The founder of one well-known apparel company, for instance, used stand-up to bring her employees together. She brought in a professional consultant to help staff write and perform their own short sets. Someone who had never gone near that world suddenly gets a glimpse of the comedy format — and discovers that yes, they can do it too. The result: the employee becomes more self-assured, braver, and feels genuinely valued.

If your goal is to be funnier in front of a room rather than one-to-one, it pays to also work on holding attention overall — see our guide on how to engage an audience.

In conclusion

A sense of humor can be developed. There are thousands of comedians in the world who didn't believe in their own ability — and after committing to the practice, got excellent results anyway. Start building yours right now.