My strange relationship with hobbies….

I have a strange relationship with hobbies. I’ve had a few over the years - writing, drawing, learning new languages, photography, sewing, baking, video games, stop-motion filmmaking… the list goes on.

Here’s how it usually plays out. I’ll fall in love with a new hobby, get a dizzying high from the feeling of novelty, and throw myself wholeheartedly into it. I once spent around five hours putting together roughly ten minutes of animated footage. (Stop-motion is hard. Who knew!)

At first it’s great! I feel productive, engaged and generally buoyed up by the feeling of accomplishment. I feel like I’ve found my calling. But over time, the spark of novelty begins to wane. It gets harder and harder to get into that headspace where everything feels easy and fun. The hobby begins to feel more and more like plain old work. It starts to feel intimidating, and before long a shiny new hobby comes along to take up my time. And so the cycle goes on.

To my understanding, this is not uncommon for ADHD folks. We crave novelty, we’re often very creative people, but unfortunately we can also have a tendency towards perfectionism, which can result in our feeling very discouraged when our work doesn’t come out great the first time, or reluctant to put the work into something if there’s a risk of it turning out badly.

It’s frustrating. I’ve produced some lovely creative work this way, but I always think about how much I’d be able to achieve if I could just stick to one thing and not rely on the initial rush of novelty to keep me going. It’s hard to shake the feeling that hobbies shouldn’t be difficult. It’s very much a separate issue with struggling or feeling demotivated to do actual work - after all, if I don’t bother with work, I’ll lose my job and my livelihood. The stakes are much higher. With hobbies, however, it feels dangerously easy to go “eh, it’s not worth it, let’s not bother.”

So, what’s to be done? Well, you could make the argument that hobbies are indeed meant to be fun and low-stakes; there’s nothing inherently stopping you from moving on if you’re not enjoying something any more. But this can feel a little unsatisfying - when we’ve already put work into something, it’s natural to want to see it through and enjoy the fruits of our creative labour. Perhaps we might want to monetise our hobbies at some point, or feel accomplished by sharing our work with the world. We don’t have to be good at our hobbies - or financially reimbursed for them - to enjoy them, but it’s understandable to want to become good at something. And that takes work.

I’ve come across a few methods to help me get back into it: setting a specific time of day to work on a hobby, timing myself and setting deadlines, so I can work for half an hour or so and take five-minute breaks. Having a clear goal in mind (e.g. I’ll sketch a draft of something that I later plan on painting) can help too. On paper it can sound a little regimental, but being able to say “I’m definitely going to work on my homemade tote bag today” and then following through with it is a lovely rewarding feeling. Having “free periods” where I plan to work on something, but it’s up to me what that is, also works well.

I ask myself whether there’s something specific standing in my way. Am I stuck on a particularly difficult video game level, which is putting me off the game as a whole? (Naturally I wouldn’t dream of cheating, but online guides and walkthrough videos can be a useful asset, *wink wink*.) Is my sewing machine not doing what I want it to, and would a tutorial help? Is my workspace messy, meaning that getting something underway is going to involve digging through a lot of rubbish to find what I need? Often once I’ve got to the bottom of what’s holding me back and fixed the problem, things start to run a lot more smoothly.

I collaborate, or assign a “buddy” to motivate me and give me feedback. Having someone to work with or help you along can be extremely helpful, and makes things a little more concrete.

I take advantage of the “cycle”. Nobody said you had to put all your attention into one thing at a time, and alternating between hobbies can often help me stay engaged and ensure none of them lose their lustre too quickly.

Of course, inevitably, some things will fall by the wayside or turn out not to be as fun as I’d expected. That’s ok. But I like to make sure that I’ve made an honest attempt - given things the “old college try”, as it were - before giving up, instead of quitting preemptively at the first sign of frustration.

You might have heard the phrase “jack of all trades, master of none”. One thing a lot of people don’t know, however, is that the full proverb is “jack of all trades, master of none, but better than being a master of one.” This might be a little subjective - some people get a lot of success out of mastering one particular discipline, after all - but it’s certainly not the only way to do things. There are a lot of benefits to be gained from learning multiple skills, even if you don’t fully master them all.