Why You Should Pursue A Hobby in 2020
2020 has been one hell of a stressful year for all of us. There are so many issues and emotions occurring all at once, which has led people to be divided.
It’s important during this time to keep your mind active, strong, and healthy… which is why we have taken advantage of our downtime with a plethora of hobbies.
In this post, I wanted to explain with you the mental benefits of pursuing a hobby during this time. Pursuing a hobby not only helps you mentally but helps you spiritually as well. When we talk about spirit, we believe that hobbies allow us to build optimism, a purposeful life, and allow you to build empathy.
So let’s armor ourselves (mind, body, and soul), and dive into this one!
Hobbies Gives You A Purpose or Meaning
During this time, we are lost in stress. Some of us received epiphanies about the realization of how you’re not doing stuff you’re enjoying with your life. Lack of purpose is a huge depression issue in many of us, so I think it’s important to explore hobbies — big or small.
Before feeling helpless, we think it’s important to understand that you just need to find something you’ll enjoy working towards.
I personally like to look at depression or helplessness as a feeling of “wanting more in my life”. This allows me to really find something that’s worth fighting for — no matter how big or small.
On a large-scale, I decided to quit my job and pursue the hobby of building businesses, which I came to realize aligned with my purpose in building a health and fitness brand.
On a small-scale, I like to write, so I created this blog with the intent of helping others find happiness and fulfillment in their lives. Sometimes, I’ll add hobbies like new forms of exercise and instruments in here to keep my mind and body moving.
If you have an interest in a new hobby, start small and work your way into it. Never think about being a pro guitar player at day one, realize that comes over thousands of hours of practice… but you rack up the hours. As you learn more and get better, you eventually have a purposeful mission towards becoming a professional. Who knows, maybe you can even sell your services in the future… the sky is the limit.
Hobbies Builds Self-Esteem
Engaging in new hobbies and getting better at them can easily build self-esteem where you lack it.
When I first started working out, I lacked self-esteem because I never believed in myself. I never had any hobby or specific sport I was good at, and I pretty much sucked at gaming competitively.
I honestly felt I was talentless at pretty much everything… and it was because I lacked the self-esteem to try things.
Once I started noticing results and losing weight… it started to build momentum. The more I exercised, the better I got, the healthier I got. The more confidence I received. It eventually became habitual: self-esteem was built, my overall mood got better, I ate better, and I just felt significantly more confident.
Starting something new seems scary at the beginning… but taking those small steps towards being better will eventually add up. Don’t be disheartened by seeing professionals (who have done these hobbies for years) dominate the competition. You can eventually get there, granted you practice consistently.
Hobbies Help You Take Care of Yourself
Most of our days, we are doing things for other people: taking care of our kids, working a 9–5, studying for an exam, and more. We can argue that these benefit you obviously, but it’s not productive “you time”.
When you wake up and immediately go to work or school, you aren’t having your productive “you time”. When we come home in the evening, we tend to unwind, to watch our Netflix, look at memes, and other things. This is not productive; this is just you relaxing and lazing away.
While this is not necessarily a bad thing in small amounts, too much of this doesn’t help you work towards something. Binge-watching a television show is more passive than active.
Having a hobby and working on it allows you to focus on things that are less productive for you.
I personally wake up in the morning, take care of my readings, podcasts, and do a morning exercise all before my entire workday starts. This allows me to feel like I’ve accomplished so much for myself so that I can take care of others.
You gotta be selfish to be selfless sometimes.
All in all, hobbies are very therapeutic, in that they not only help you mentally, but they can help you spiritually too. Improving our spiritual health leads us to have a more purposeful life and allows us to understand ourselves more.
You’d be surprised what a hobby like journaling or instrument playing can do for you.
Hobby Action Plan: Building Habits
Now that we have given you reasons to experiment with new hobbies, now it’s time to show you a simple action plan that should work for any hobby you utilize.
If you’ve seen in our previous posts, we know a lot about habits and behavioral psychology. Habits are typically influenced by two things: Taking Incremental Steps and Changing Your Environment.
Here’s our simple action plan to build a habit:
- Keep yourself in an environment that allows you to work on your hobby.
- Use Emotional triggers to work on your hobby. If you feel stressed, make your hobby your stress relief. Whenever I am stressed out, I know I have to exercise when I can or play an instrument.
- Use Environmental triggers to work on your hobby. If working out is your new hobby, keep your gym clothes on you when you’re driving home from work (avoid putting junk food in your office as well). This will remind you to get your workout in, whether it’s in a gym or outdoors.
- Learn small steps or movements every day. Whether it’s 5–15 minute practice to start, start small, and work your way up. I’ve had people I’ve trained where they started exercising for only 15 minutes… until 15 became 30… then 30 became an hour. 1% growth a day is important.
- Reminder List… or Alarms. If you hate seeing notifications (like me), keep a reminder list on your phone. If you don’t have OCD like me, have alarms reminding you to do things.
- If you mess up, continue to move forward. We can’t always be 100% — we will make a mistake or miss a day due to life getting the best of us. After messing up once, restart. Don’t give up or quit — keep moving forward.
Follow these six steps and you will be working towards building a hobby you enjoy.
You need to do what helps you stay motivated and happy during this time. Find something that will keep you occupied, and of a stronger mind. Listen to personal development podcasts, read philosophy, do whatever you have to do to keep you moving forward.
Hobby Up
Now that you have read this, ask yourself what you are interested in. Then go on Amazon and buy the most basic journal, instrument, or scrapbook and get to work.
Any questions, comments, or insights you’d like to share? Throw them in the comments below. We are looking to always willing to expand on our ideas and philosophies, so feel free to let us know!
Until next time, everyone!
This post was originally from our Mental Health blog, Fullmetal Mind
