How to Find a Hobby as an Adult (and why it even matters)
Keep reading this post to learn:
⋒ The science behind the importance of playing as an adult
⋒ How having a hobby can make your life better (and your loved one’s lives better)
⋒ How to find a hobby when you have no clue what your hobby is
Raise your hand if when someone asks you what your hobbies are, there are straight crickets in your brain. 🙋🏻♀️
Your days are filled with getting your kids to school on time (preferably in matching shoes), spending a few minutes journaling to get your head on straight so you don’t yell at your toddler for sticking their arm in the peanut butter jar (again), organizing your appointments in your planner so you don’t miss anything important, going to work, making sure your family is fed a somewhat nutritious dinner, and getting everyone to bed so you can do it all again tomorrow – like what even is a hobby??? Lol 🫠
But what if I told you that spending 20-30 minutes a day practicing a hobby would make all of that day-to-day stuff feel a lot less stressful for you? Because it can!
Let me be honest for a sec – as a recovering workaholic/overachiever and Enneagram 3, I used to think hobbies were a complete waste of time.
Hustle culture told me that anything that wasn’t directly getting me closer to my goals or making me money was useless. Hustle culture told me that I didn’t have time for hobbies because I had too much to do. Hustle culture told me that hobbies were for lazy/complacent people.
So if that’s you right now, I’ve been there, and I challenge you to listen to this episode with an open mind.
I wanted to share this quote with you:
“Life without play is a grinding, mechanical existence organized around doing the things necessary for survival. Play is the vital essence of life. It is what makes life lively.” - page 12; Play by Stuart Brown, M.D.
Playing is what makes live lively… that hits! So often, as women with full lives and schedules, we get hyper-focused on our routines, to-do lists, and making sure that all of our boxes are checked. We forget that we are human beings, not human doings.
Listen – when you’re so used to the daily grind being your way of life, it’s easy to get lost in it. To think that’s just how it is. But it doesn’t have to be. You are the gatekeeper of your calendar. You get to design your life. Don’t settle for feeling stretched too thin as being your normal.
Why You Need A Hobby
Adults need playtime to relax, recharge, reconnect, and invest in their self-care. With so many responsibilities and obligations packed into full schedules, adults rarely find time for play. But taking time out of your daily life to prioritize downtime and enjoyment is vital to health and well-being. Adults can benefit from playing as little as 20–30 minutes a day.
You guys… that is 1/72 of your day.
Research tells us that playing is just as important for adults as for children. Most people don’t question the importance of play in a child’s life – we know that play is crucial to healthy development so we build into their daily lives.
Think about the last time you played - engaged in an activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose. You probably felt lighter, freer, and more at peace right? There are chemical and biological reasons why the act of play makes you feel better.
The act of play causes our brains to release 6 “feel-good” hormones:
Endorphins: make you feel more positive and energize your outlook, and may even help to block sources of pain in your everyday life. They even improve immune response and reduce stress. Through vigorous, active play, you can boost your self-esteem and even trigger a euphoric outlook on life.
Oxytocin: Also known as the “love hormone”, the “hug hormone” or the “touch hormone”, oxytocin is a powerful brain neurotransmitter that helps you build more powerful relationships with others.
Dopamine: usually referred to as the “reward drug” is a powerful feel-good hormone that provides a boost of pleasure and contributes to happiness, enhanced cognitive ability and improved ability to learn and pay attention.
Serotonin: a neurotransmitter that impacts your mood, ability to sleep, memory and learning. It’s most popularly linked to preventing depression especially when linked to being active outdoors. Researchers have found that an imbalance in serotonin levels can lead to negative moods, including anxiety and panic, as well as depression. By engaging in play, however, you can balance your body’s serotonin levels in a natural way that helps to protect you from the impact of stress and negative stimuli in your environment.
Norepinephrine: Play can increase norepinephrine levels, which can enhance attention, alertness, and focus. Norepinephrine is a hormone and neurotransmitter that is involved in the body's "fight or flight" response. It plays a role in increasing alertness, attention, and focus. During active play, the release of norepinephrine can help improve cognitive function and increase energy levels, making it easier to focus and stay alert.
GABA: or Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid, is a neurotransmitter that promotes calm and relaxation. It is responsible for reducing anxiety and stress levels in the body, and also has a role in regulating sleep patterns. Engaging in active play has been shown to stimulate the release of GABA, which can help reduce symptoms of anxiety and promote feelings of calmness and relaxation.
Even 30 minutes of play can unlock powerful feel-good hormones and change the way the brain responds to the signals it receives.
These feel-good hormones lead to some incredible mental health benefits, including:
~ improved mood
~ improved sleep quality
~ reduced stress
~ improved cognitive ability (which tends to boost productivity)
~ improved relationships
Another quote from the book Play by Stuart Brown, M.D.:
“What might seem like a frivolous or even childish pursuit is ultimately beneficial. It’s paradoxical that a little bit of “nonproductive” activity can make one enormously more productive or invigorated in other aspects of life.” - page 11
We talked about hobbies a few weeks ago here on the show – how there is quite a bit of science and research that backs their importance. I read an article from Harvard Health where the researchers say hobbies — such as arts and crafts, games, gardening, volunteering, or participating in clubs — involve creativity, sensory engagement, self-expression, relaxation, and cognitive stimulation, which are linked to good mental health and well-being.
The science doesn’t lie, right? There’s no doubt that play and hobbies can make your life better…we can all agree on that.
But one roadblock that a lot of adults come up against is, “How do I even find a hobby?” For some of us, it’s been so long since we’ve had one, that we don’t have any idea what we’re interested in anymore. That’s okay – I’m gonna walk you through how to do a bit of a hobby scavenger hunt, if you will, to help you figure out what it means to have fun for you in this season of your life.
How to Find A Hobby
01: Write out a list of things that interest you (or that you think might interest you).
Literally get out a piece of paper or open up a Google doc and jot down anything that comes to mind that piques your interest even a little bit!
Ask yourself these questions to get your wheels spinning:
“What did I like to do for fun as a kid/teenager?”
“What kind of things do I tend to plan/look forward to during my recreation time?”
“What activities make me lose track of time”
Some of my current hobbies are reading books, buying books, and making YouTube videos about books – and my friends jokingly tell me how boring that sounds to them, lol
02: Think about what season you’re in and choose a hobby that makes sense for right now.
Part of Hustling Sanely is honoring your season. Instead of trying to cram things that have worked for previous seasons into your life right now and getting frustrated that they are not working well, meet yourself where you are.
For example, reading is a great hobby for my season of life as a toddler mom because it’s something I can do every day. I can do it from home while my daughter is napping or sleeping.
Other hobbies I have, like going to concerts, paddleboarding, and playing pickleball, require me to leave the house and get childcare – aka they’re not my go-to hobbies in this season. I still do them sometimes but I can’t depend on those hobbies to provide daily enjoyment right now with a toddler at home, you know?
So think about what season you’re in right now – what does your life look like on a day-to-day basis – and ask yourself, what is something that is sustainable for me to do almost every day to have fun with how life is at the moment?
03: Ditch the perfectionistic attitude.
Where are my recovering perfectionists at? This step is for you! And honestly this is probably gonna hit for Enneagram 3s too – you can be “bad” at something and still enjoy doing it as a hobby. Gassssp, I know – groundbreaking right?
Especially if you’re trying out new things to see if you like doing them – you probably won’t be good at it right out of the gate.
Let’s say you decide you want to start taking a weekly pottery class and you go to your first one and you have he time of your life. You love the feeling of the clay in your hand and the pottery wheel pedal under your foot. The hour-long class flies by and you can’t believe it’s already over when the instructor tells you it’s time to clean up. You look down at the mess you’ve made…you can’t really make out what you created but you don’t care because you had a good time. THAT IS AMAZING! Who cares if the coffee mug you’re trying to make looks more like a coaster, lol.
The purpose of hobbies isn’t to be the best or to have pressure to improve – the purpose of hobbies is to ground you and inject joy into your life.
There are no right or wrong hobbies. One person’s hobby is another person’s nightmare and that’s okay.
Another hobby of mine is organizing. I love turning on an audiobook or YouTube video and decluttering and reorganizing closets in our home. I lose track of time and feel such a sense of accomplishment when I’m done. I organize closets that don’t even need to be organized just because I like doing it!
Again, if it’s fun to you, it’s hobby-worthy!
04. Create a hobby hierarchy.
An affirmation I’ve been clinging to lately that has changed the game is “an all-in attitude serves me better than an all-or-nothing attitude.”
I don’t know who else needs to hear this but you can have multiple hobbies – you don’t have to have one hobby. Honestly, I think it's more beneficial to have a few because then you can disperse hobbies throughout your daily life.
👉🏼 Think about things you can do in your life daily to have fun. Where do you have margin and free time in your days and what makes sense for those time slots?
Examples: Reading, crocheting, diamond painting, lifting weights, writing
👉🏼 Think about things you can do weekly to have fun. These things are not sustainable to do every day but you feel like you can manage them around once a week in your current season.
Examples: Photography, rowing, taking an acting class
👉🏼 Think about things you can do monthly or quarterly to have fun. These things probably require a higher investment of time so you can do them once a month or every few months.
Examples: Going camping, going to a concert, paddleboarding
And wa-la, you’ve created your hobby hierarchy!
And to go along with our tangible action steps, let’s wrap up with some concrete examples. Here is a list of 10 hobbies to get your wheels turning:
01: Playing pickleball
02: Scrapbooking
03: Making jewelry
04: Practicing calligraphy
05: Crocheting
06: Learning a new language
07: Joining a rec sports team, like kickball
08: Starting a book club
09: Doing puzzles
10: Playing video games
Obviously, there are WAY more hobbies out there but like I said, this is just to get your juices flowing! There is no such thing as a right or wrong hobby, remember that.
To skip out on play and practicing a hobby is to skip out on the healthiest version of you.
Spending time on a hobby isn’t a waste of time, it’s an investment in you because it affects how you show up for what matters most to you in your day-to-day life… your family, your friends, your work, etc.
When you prioritize play, you change your brain chemistry and challenge the lies that hustle culture tries to sell you.
When you prioritize play, you show up for your life with more patience, confidence, peace, and joy… and that spills into everything.
HAVE YOU HEARD?
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