Hobbies: Why and how you should start one
By Afra Padmore
“What’s your hobby?”, “Do you play any sports?”, “What do you get up to in your free time?”
These are icebreaker questions that we often get asked when meeting new people. I’m sure I’m not the only one who struggles to find an answer.
I might say something like “Well, I do have an interest in football, but I don’t follow it regularly. So please don’t ask any questions about it!” or “I enjoy going shopping, but is that even a ‘real’ hobby?”
Well, allow me to relieve us all from racking our brains. The definition of a hobby explains that it is an activity we regularly do outside our main occupations (i.e work or university) to bring pleasure and relaxation into our lives. This means that if we often engage in an activity that we enjoy, it becomes a hobby regardless of whether we are an expert in it or not.
Finding a hobby is important not only for giving us an answer to questions about what we got up to at the weekend, but indeed encapsulate so many more benefits. They help us to care for our mental wellbeing, build better rapport with others (especially those who have shared interests), broaden our knowledge as well as develop new transferable skills.
You may be wondering, how can a hobby do all of this? Well, here are some stats for you:
One study by Adams-Price and Morse (2018) showed that adults who participated in creative hobbies found it to be meaningful and fulfilling, and experienced a positive impact on their identity and self-esteem.
Taking part in team sports as a hobby has been found to increase our social connections, therefore, reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression (Pluhar et al., 2019)
Spending as little as 10 minutes in nature helps improve our mood, focus and health (Mukherjee, 2019)
So now that you know having a hobby is definitely a good idea, here’s 3 tips on how you can start one:
1) Listen to your inner child
As adults, we may find it difficult to find hobbies of interest. We may see them as time-consuming and therefore not fitting our busy schedules, or think that we’ve outgrown the need to have one as they are often associated with childhood or younger years. However, as you can see from the definition of a hobby, there is no age limit on who can and cannot engage in them.
On the contrary, these childhood desires and interests can be used as the foundation on which we as adults join new activities outside our occupations. For example, the bursts of creativity we had as young individuals that led us to design clothes for our dolls or our dedication to learning the skills of footballers in the women's and men‘s premier league.
2) Don’t worry about the price tag, hobbies can be fun AND cost-effective
The current economic situation can, understandably, encourage some of us to reassess our financial priorities and therefore reduce the number of expenses we invest in our wants so that we can better afford our needs. As a result, we may cut down some of our interests outside of work such as our gym membership, art classes or exploring restaurants to try new cuisines; closing a chapter of fun activities behind. However, there are many hobbies that have no or very low costs such as using the internet to expand our knowledge on specific subjects instead of buying books, cooking new homemade dishes instead of eating out, learning a new sport on Youtube over having a membership, the list goes on… Often, there are cheaper alternatives to our hobbies that we can swap to keep our interests and passions outside of work at the lowest cost possible.
3) Allow yourself to be curious
If you need to build new hobbies from scratch, do not despair! Here are some starting points to help you start your journey with new interests. Firstly, you can get some inspiration from the things and experiences you buy like scented candles and scare mazes. This can be turned into a hobby where you make your own wax candles or turn your love for thrillers into blogs on horror movies you’ve watched. Secondly, you can start a hobby that makes you feel empowered, confident and skilled. Indeed, activities that produce hormones of happiness can give the best hint on what works best for us and gives us a sense of passion. Lastly, be open to trying hobbies that you think are not the best match for you initially - you might surprise yourself!
And as a final note, if you believe that you have to stick to the hobby and that trying anything new will mean that you will not be excelling in it, I would like you to imagine… what if you enjoy the process of learning something new as a beginner? I can assure you that you will never have an answer to this until you try!