If you’re reading this, you’re on your way to becoming a real-life, bona fide Hobbyist! Good for you! Hobbyists are an elite group of very exciting people who take their hobbying seriously, who chase passionately those things that interest them most- who then brag blog about their progress, successes, and failures. Hobbyists are painfully honest about the realities of hobbying, and we seek to convey our hobby truths in the best way we know how (sardonically). We pursue hobbies for the thrill of the pursuit. We are adventurers! We hobby because we must. We are Hobbyists. Welcome.
Alright, now that you know you wanna be a Hobbyist- where to start?? I remember when I chose my very first hobbies- feels just like it was yesterday. There I was- the inaugural Hobby Summit of 2015, held over brunch at Foode in Old Town Fredericksburg. I had lots of previous experience with goal-setting, so I knew that my hobbies needed to each meet a need for me, be something I might enjoy, and be in some way quantifiable.
One-Meeting A Need
The easiest way (in my opinion) to choose what you’ll do with your time is to make a list of the priorities in your life (I’ll write about this more in detail later on). Because my hobbies are just for me (with some overflow into the other important areas of my life), I look at it like this- I want to nourish and enrich myself in every area of who I am. What are the components of a person? I chose hobbies that would (theoretically) make me better and happier in mind, body, and spirit.
Courtney’s Hobbies of 2016:
- Mind- Learn German, Read a book a week, daily reflection/journaling
- Body- weight loss/fitness, run 2 half marathons
- Spirit- Read the Bible in its entirety, complete one art project a week (hand lettering, drawing, et cetera)
Two-Something to Enjoy
Your hobbies are meant to make you happy! Pick things you’re already interested in. I love to sing, so last year I chose to practice singing and take guitar lessons so I could accompany myself. I found out by March that I just wasn’t passionate about playing guitar- and that’s okay! I liked it well enough, I was moderately good at it, but I didn’t love it enough to practice regularly. I realized after a few weeks that I was playing a game- to win, I had to get my guitar teacher to not make me actually play the guitar in the lesson. I am super interested in music theory, so he taught me the basics and I really enjoyed it. Overall, the game was not only fun, but enlightening- I also learned that not much has changed since Michael, Sam, and I strategically avoided participating in gym class. A hobby win is whenever you successfully try a hobby- you either like it and keep going, or you don’t and you quit. Either way it’s a win! So just pick things you think sound like fun and go along with what you’re already good at.
Three- Easily Trackable
Your hobbies will either be new things you want to try, or things you already enjoy doing that you want to do more often. When it’s something new, you’d say that you “want to try basket weaving this year.” But if you already know that you love weaving baskets, you may say “I want to weave more baskets that are better baskets than I’ve ever before woven.” What exactly does that look like? Do you want to weave a new basket every month? Weave with new and interesting materials? How will you know if you’ve improved from the beginning of the year?
That’s what I mean by making your hobby easily trackable. If you set small goals or milestones, it will be easier for you to stay on track and see where you’ve improved. It helps keep me motivated when I hit a milestone- last week, Sam and I ran 7 miles. That’s the farthest I’ve ever gone! I can see, based on that mileage, exactly how close I am to my goal of running a half marathon in the Spring. I’m more than halfway there, and I know I’ve improved because this time last year, I was eating my feelings and the best exercise I was getting was running around my house, complaining loudly as I gathered everyone’s laundry (but like what situation requires a small child to remove his underwear with such abandon that several pair are left strewn about the home??).
Once you’ve picked the hobbies you want to work on, the next steps are to start. Work on one thing at a time if you’re new to hobbying, or jump right in if you feel ready! It’s so super important to keep track- make sure you’re working on all of your hobbies regularly so one doesn’t get neglected or left behind (*ahem* last year’s pledge to write more letters). We here at hobbiesof.com will be using the blog to keep track of our hobby progress, but I’ll also be using a daily tracking planner that I’ll talk about in my next post!
Hobbies of 
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