In sum, leisure appears to have a consistent within-person benefit on a person’s daily health and well-being; when individuals engaged in leisure, they also reported better mood, more interest, less stress, and exhibited lower heart rate than when they were not engaging in leisure activity.
Real-Time Associations Between Engaging in Leisure and Daily Health
Hobbies are great for our well-being, but internal and external barriers often make it hard to find and start a new hobby.
We’ll list common barriers to starting a new hobby and offer a few—hopefully helpful—comments on how to overcome each.
Barriers to Finding a Hobby
Lack of Motivation
You may not yet be sold on starting a new hobby.
Comments
- If you are happy and content, that’s great. Hobbies are a means to well-being, not an end. If you are already well, maybe you don’t need a new hobby.
- If you feel your well-being can be improved, though, and you still lack the motivation to start a new hobby, perhaps you need to be convinced of the potential benefits of hobbies.
- Research finds that hobbies can effectively improve all aspects of your well-being.
- We recommend seeking intrinsic motivation—finding something you genuinely enjoy—over extrinsic motivation, such as a side hustle or resume skills, as it is more likely to help you overcome barriers and commit to a hobby.
Wrong Motivation
We should keep in mind what hobbies are for.
Comments
- Hobbies are often mistaken as productivity enhancers and judged by the wrong parameters.
- For example, it is common advice to choose a hobby that complements our career.
- Choosing a hobby for a potential side hustle is another common motivation.
- We might also look for a hobby that looks good to others—an ‘Instagrammable’ hobby.
- These motivations miss the point, as a hobby’s only end goal is our enjoyment and well-being. A hobby isn’t a sidekick of our career; if anything, it should be the opposite.
- A hobby could, by chance, be related to our job and look good on social media, but it might not—and that doesn’t make it less worthy, perhaps even more so. A hobby that we truly enjoy can be completely out of character and delightfully random.
- Search for an intrinsic motivation rather than an extrinsic one. Find out what really makes you feel good and relaxed, not what may improve your odds or impress others.
Lack of Enthusiasm
Maybe you are sold on starting a new hobby, but no hobby that thrills you comes to mind. That brings us to the next point.
Lack of A Concrete Hobby Idea
We can find ourselves unable to come up with ideas for a hobby or overwhelmed by the numerous options.
Comments
- Quick, how many hobbies can you name? This is called a verbal fluency test1, in which the participant is asked to produce as many words as possible from a category in a given time (usually 60 seconds). The rate of production of new items typically declines quickly. Apparently, our brains don’t usually do well when being put on the spot like this.
- Unable to generate enough hobby ideas, we might resort to premade lists—which can either be too restrictive or too extensive.
- The Hobbies 4 Life catalog offers an extensive collection of hobbies, allowing you to dive in and immerse yourself in each. This way, you don’t need to think much—just browse and feel what excites you most. Let the hobby choose you.
- The catalog is ordered randomly (the order changes daily)—a choice designed to spark unexpected and unopinionated discoveries. If you prefer more control, our comprehensive filters are ready when you are.
Starting a Hobby
Lack of Inspiration
You may feel uninspired to take the first step even after finding a hobby that entices you.
Comments
- First, reflect on whether you chose a hobby that intrinsically motivates you. If not, reconsider your choice.
- Suppose you have the right motivation but lack the inspiration to take the first step. In that case, our hobby pages offer inspiring content designed to help—from interesting facts via podcasts to documentaries. Give them a try.
Perceived Difficulty
This is a tough one. Let’s try breaking it down,
Comments
- First, understand what exactly you perceive as difficult. Becoming an award-winning pianist is indeed difficult. But rocking “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on a digital or virtual piano isn’t so difficult. Hobbies aren’t about excelling, they are about enjoying ourselves.
- Second, easy first steps are almost always available. Taking those steps often makes the next ones feel less daunting. Usually, a simple “Aha!” moment is all it takes to shift our perception2.
- That’s why each hobby page on Hobbies 4 Life features a ‘First Steps’ section, offering practical—often innovative—ways to easily begin exploring the hobby.
- Of course, many hobbies are easy by nature and still great. Some hobbies are literally a walk in the park. Even intentionally doing nothing counts as a hobby. Other hobbies are easy to start. The purpose of hobbies isn’t a challenge.
Lack of time
This is a common one. Time and energy are limited resources, but flexible.
Comments
- You probably know people who do so much that you wonder if they have more hours in the day. The fact is, time perception is relative and largely influenced by mindset—particularly motivation and inspiration, so get these sorted.
- Once you find a hobby you are truly excited about, and you remove other barriers, you are likely to, somehow, find time and energy for it.
- It helps that many hobbies are time-flexible, and many others can be incorporated into your daily routines.
- Another time-related barrier to hobbies is the perception that time spent on hobbies is unproductive and thus wasted. In response, we’ll quote Marthe Troly-Curtin:
Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
Phrynette, by Marthe Troly-Curtin
- Time can also be a chicken-or-the-egg sort of thing: it’s not that you don’t have a hobby because you don’t have time, but rather that you don’t have time because you don’t have a hobby. It is hard to maintain a work-life balance without an engaging life to counterweight work.
- Hobbies can also help you reclaim wasted time by replacing bad habits, such as doom-scrolling and binge-watching.
Lack of Money
Time might be money, but often, the more money we have, the less time we have to enjoy it. We may believe we need lots of money to have a good time. It is often not the case.
Comments
- Many hobbies can be pursued for free or for little money.
- Even seemingly expensive hobbies often offer money-saving innovations, tips, tricks, and cheaper alternatives.
- Learning materials are often available for free online.
- For physical goods, consider borrowing, renting, fixing, or buying refurbished or secondhand items.
- While we might associate increased price with increased fun, that isn’t always the case. Bicycles, for example, can get ridiculously expensive. Expensive bicycles might help you shave a few minutes in the Tour de France, but for hobbyists, cheap bikes are just as good, maybe even better.
Lack of Facilities
It’s hard to swim without a swimming pool or a safe body of water nearby.
Comments
- Lack of facilities can indeed be limiting.
- Research might sometimes find workarounds and creative solutions.
- Otherwise, you can find a related or similar hobby. Check out the ‘Related Hobbies’ section on the hobby page for alternatives or the ‘Additional Information’ section for finding other hobbies with similar properties to the one you can’t currently pursue.
Lack of Community
Communities are great, but finding the right ones can be difficult, and joining them can be intimidating.
Comments
- The easiest way to find a community is often online. For a while, you can be a bystander.
- Community comes in many forms. Podcasts, for example, can foster a sense of community3.
- With most hobbies, you can take the first few steps on your own and then look for a community when you have a bit more clue and confidence.
- Check out the ‘Community and Near You’ section on the hobby page for hobby-specific community resources.
- Keep in mind that hobby communities are often welcoming to beginners and non-judgmental. After all, it is nice when someone finds a new interest in something you care about.
Social Stigma or Fear of Judgment
You might have found the perfect hobby for you, but you are afraid of what others might think. Some hobbies suffer from social stigma, or we believe they do.
Comments
- Pole dancing is an example. Men might fear it is too feminine, and women might fear its erotic origins.
- Researching the hobby might help. In the case of pole dancing, you will discover that many men practice it and that it has long transcended its erotic origins. Today, it is practiced and celebrated by many for its physical fitness benefits and artistic expression.
- Documentaries, like Netflix’s ‘Strip Down, Rise Up’, are often a good way to root out stigmas. Movies, in general, are great hobby catalysts.
- Communities are also a great way to overcome a fear of stigma, and you can find them easily online.
- Most importantly, at the end of the day, we know it doesn’t matter what others think. We pursue hobbies to enjoy ourselves, and if we do enjoy ourselves, nobody should stop us.
Lack of knowledge and know-how
The first steps are often the hardest to take because you feel clueless. Sometimes, we might feel we don’t even know what to ask.
Comments
- Remember that everyone starts as a beginner. You’re not alone in feeling uncertain at first.
- Start with simple, general research by reading articles or watching videos about the hobby.
- Review the ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ on the hobby page.
- After initial research, you’ll either feel confident enough to start or have more specific questions to guide your learning.
- There are numerous resources available for beginners, including how-to guides, tutorials, and courses—many of which are free.
- Our hobby pages are specifically designed to guide you through your first steps, providing a structured approach to getting started.
Performance Anxiety
This includes anything that makes you anxious about your performance, such as perfectionism, a lack of self-confidence or self-esteem, or fear of failure.
Comments
- A lot can be said about each factor that contributes to performance anxiety.
- For example, society often uses double standards with perfectionism, discouraging it with words while encouraging it through actions. An example is a Harvard article titled “Perfectionism Might Be Hurting You. Here’s How to Change Your Relationship to Achievement“. Ironically, Harvard and similar institutions, and the ideas they are based on, are major contributors to perfectionism—which is increasingly recognized as a significant mental health concern.
- We were taught to believe that life is a competition, and to win, or even merely survive, we must excel and strive for perfection. For this, we are encouraged to set goals and achieve them.
- Luckily, not everything in life is a competition. In the realm of hobbies, our enjoyment is the sole end goal. To enjoy ourselves, we don’t need to excel and certainly not be perfect. Our performance in hobbies doesn’t matter.
- It is perfectly fine to suck at our hobbies, nobody evaluates us, and we can’t be ‘fired’ from our hobbies. All we need to do is internalize this understanding and let go.
- Goals, unless you find them enjoyable, are essentially irrelevant to hobbies. So is progress.
- However, competition can also be enjoyable, and hobbies can provide a framework for healthy competition.
- Not that it matters, but others are generally less likely to judge us based on our skill level in hobbies. After all, it’s just a hobby.
- In hobbies, there is no failure because there is no success; the only measurement is our enjoyment, and it doesn’t correlate to performance.
- The commin proverb “No pain, no gain” is another performance-related barrier to hobbies—who wants to introduce more pain to their life? Luckily, this myth is debunked4: you can gain without pain.
Comfort Zone and Fear of the Unknown
Hobbies can be an opportunity to venture beyond the familiar, but they certainly don’t have to be.
Comments
- First, re-evaluate why you chose a hobby that makes you feel uncomfortable. Ensure that you selected it for intrinsic reasons (believing you will enjoy it) rather than extrinsic ones (feeling you should do it to improve yourself or fit some external standard).
- If your motivation is intrinsic, begin by researching the hobby. This will likely clarify many of the unknowns and help you feel more confident about getting started.
- Then, join an online community, even if just as a bystander at the start.
- Consider starting with a variation of a hobby. For instance, if joining a soccer team feels intimidating, try freestyle football to build your confidence.
Depression, Anxiety, and Stress
These symptoms are often measured collectively using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS). They can have a twofold negative impact on our well-being, both directly worsening it and indirectly discouraging us from taking steps to improve it.
Comments
- Psychological distress is common, with 35% of the global population reporting stress, for example. Despite its prevalence, it often remains a personal struggle.
- While there are no magic solutions, it’s worth noting that research consistently identifies hobbies as helpful in relieving or preventing psychological distress symptoms.
- Hobbies can be beneficial by providing both distraction and a sense of meaning, the lack of which is often associated with mental health issues.
- Even a hesitant, humble start can lead to improved mental well-being.
Disabilities
Disabilities can take many forms, and luckily, so do hobbies
Comments
- Disabilities can make us feel excluded.
- A disability might lead to feelings of incapability or being overlooked despite our abilities.
- While in most aspects of life, such as work and relationships, you might need to work against prejudice and discrimination to get a fair chance, hobbies are entirely up to you.
- Common hobbies in their generic forms may feel out of reach, but many other hobbies and hobby variations exist. You’re likely to find options that suit your disability.
- While browsing our hobbies catalog, you can use our extensive filters to narrow your search.
- Hobby communities are often welcoming. They can relieve a feeling of isolation and help adapt your preferred hobby to your disability.
- Hobbies can allow us to work around our disabilities, often in surprising ways. For example, Greta Pontarelli, a 70-year-old, 9-time world champion in pole dancing, sometimes used a cane or wheelchair to get to competitions, which she continued to win. She explains, “Most of it is upper body, and I wasn’t required to be able to walk”.
- Disabilities can sometimes leave us with more free time, which hobbies can fill meaningfully, improving mental well-being and reducing stress and depression.
Leave a Reply