How To Find A Hobby That Doesn't Require A New Year's Eve Declaration

How did you spend your weekend? If the answer leaves you feeling unfulfilled, don’t worry. You are definitely not the only person on the planet who either doesn’t have a hobby or wouldn’t even know where to begin to find one. I didn’t find mine until I was well into my late 20s and even then I’d have been hard pressed to call it a proper hobby. More like a distraction/obsession/thing to do.

Healthy hobbies usually tend to have a lot of the same themes – they fill your heart, your mind and your time.

Hobbies are things you do not because you have to but because you want to and if you play your cards right, they’ll get you out of bed when nothing else will. You don’t even have to be good at a hobby to do it, learning can totally be part of the journey and for some, learning might even BE the hobby.

I was 30 when I picked up my first ever hobby (outside of after-school activities). It took a particularly crappy breakup that was both utterly devastating and yet immensely liberating all at the same time. The rush of creativity that emerged from within once that energy suck of a relationship collapsed and I got my headspace back was life changing.

That first hobby was photography. If you love photography too and would like to see more of that type of content, say the word folks. I can chat for days about it!

I was 36 when I picked up my second ever hobby, cycling. This one came about after the first lockdown of 2020 - another burst of joy to come from yet another seismic life shift. Not sure why such drastic circumstances need to occur for me to look inward and find passion but this is where we are ha.

Now, hopefully it won’t take a life changing event for you to find whatever brings you joy so here are a few tips that might help you along the way along with some examples from my experience to get you started.

1. Think about the last day/week/month/year. When were you happiest and why?

i.e. I was happiest when I was imagining making something beautiful. Anything.

2. What are you good at/bad at/aren’t good at yet?

i.e. I loved beautiful imagery but wasn’t great at creating my own – a total aha! learning opportunity

3. What hobbies do you friends have? Do any of them appeal? There’s power in buddying up!

i.e. My friends are amazing! They do marathons, triathlons, make music, bake, trade art, pole dance, teach their favourite things, the list goes on. What do yours do?

4. Think about what you do for work. Are there elements of it you would happily keep doing if money was no object?

i.e. I love working with people and making cool things happen together. This was an invaluable for niche-ing (not a word) down my photography.

5. Imagine you win the lottery and you never have to work again. What would you do on your first work-free Monday morning?

i.e. This is actually a tough one when I think about it honestly. I don’t do well working without a purpose and all I ever want to do is create so the first Monday morning would probably involve making a plan to do both.

Right, that should get you going. Did I miss anything?