Cultivate A Hobby

It’s important to cultivate a hobby. No one can tell you what your hobby should be, and there aren’t any rules. Cultivating a hobby is a great way to relieve stress, and have something to help you relax.

It’s a fun way to grow your interests, expose yourself to learning something different, and even develop new skills.

Everyone in my family has a different hobby. I love to meditate, my husband Jon recently discovered he enjoys wood turning, and my daughters like various forms of art. Of course, we have several activities we enjoy doing together, but it’s nice to have a hobby we can do alone. Something that relaxes us when we have downtime.

When I first discussed this with my children, years ago when they were younger, I remember one of my daughters saying, “Mom, I don’t need a hobby. I have Netflix.”

“No,” I exclaimed, “This is exactly why you NEED a hobby.”

Watching TV is relaxing, and I like binging Netflix as much as the next girl, but that wasn’t what I had in mind. And, I don’t consider social media a hobby either. I could tell that was going to be their next suggestion.

As adults, it’s hard for us to find time to not only cultivate a hobby, but figure out what we are interested in.

When my kids were younger, they were exposed to many activities with the hope they would find something they really enjoyed doing. As I was driving them around to these activities, I remember thinking, “I want to go to art class. I want to take a dance class.”

Wouldn’t it be nice, as an adult, if you had time to expose yourself to different activities?

If you’re like most adults I know, I’m guessing you don’t have the time for a plethora of lessons and classes, plus the money to spend trying to figure out what you like.

But, you probably do have time to ask yourself a few questions. I encourage you to spend a little time thinking about the following questions, to help you identify what you’re interested in.

Ask yourself the following questions:

What were some of my favorite activities to do as a child?

Do any of the above activities interest you now?

When was the last time you spent time doing any of the above?

Is there a particular activity you see other people doing, and you’ve often thought, “I want to do that?”

If you had a free afternoon, even just two hours to spend doing an activity just for you, what would it be?

Don’t freak out if you went through the above questions and you haven’t identified an activity you’re excited about. Often, as adults, we get busy doing everything for everyone else. Our “To Do” lists are so long, we aren’t used to giving ourselves the space to even consider bringing a hobby into our lives.

Give it time.

Be patient with yourself.

Keep asking yourself the above questions. You might need to experiment with different activities before you find something you love, and you don’t have to limit yourself to just one thing. This is all about having fun, doing something you really like, getting lost in the pure joy of the activity.

Find a hobby that causes time to slow down.

An activity you become so engrossed in, you don’t realize how much time passes when you’re doing it. That’s how you know you found the right activity. Think about an activity you’ve always wanted to do in your spare-time, and go try it. It just might be the thing you’ve been waiting your whole life to discover.