Finding a hobby as an adult – no lists, no soul-searching

For most people the search for a hobby starts with a list. Fifty ideas in alphabetical order, from angling to zoology. You read through, find nothing quite convincing, and close the tab again. That is not the list’s fault. It is that you cannot read off an enumeration what will bring you joy.

The problem is not the choice

Anyone who had a hobby as a child almost never picked it. It arrived through family, through friends, through the local club. You went along and grew into it. As an adult it inverts: first the decision, then the doing. That rarely works, because you cannot predict enjoyment of something you have not done.

On top of that comes a demand children never make: it has to be worth it. People do not want to play the guitar badly for three months; they want to start once it looks likely to come to something. With that attitude you never start.

Three questions that get you further

Instead of wondering what suits you, look back at what already does:

• What makes time disappear without you noticing? Not what you admire – what actually swallows you. That is the most honest clue there is.
• Do you want to be tired afterwards, or calm? Sport, dance and craft leave the body tired and the head empty. Reading, music and drawing do the reverse. Both are fine, but they are different needs.
• Should it involve people or not? This question gets skipped most often and decides most about whether you stick with it.

Try rather than decide

The most useful approach is unglamorous: pick three things that sound roughly interesting and do each of them three times. Not once – three times. The first time everything is new and you are busy with logistics. The second time you know where to go. Only on the third do you notice whether it gives you anything.

After nine sessions you know more about yourself than after nine hours of thinking. And you have lost nothing: the two that do not fit you can drop with a clear conscience, because you actually tried them instead of just considering them.

Why a hobby with people lasts longer

A hobby you pursue alone hangs entirely on your own motivation. Hard week, and it gets dropped. Dropped three times, and it is over. A hobby with fixed slots and other people has a second anchor: you go even when you do not feel like it, because somebody asks where you have got to.

That is not a drawback; it is why clubs have worked for a hundred years. And it is why a hobby with others almost always turns into more than one done alone – you get the activity and the people with it.

What will probably stop you

Two things, both predictable. First, the idea of being too old or too late. Every adult beginners’ course has people between twenty-five and seventy in it, and nobody asks why you are only coming now. Second, the wish to be good straight away. You have to sit with that, otherwise there is no hobby, only a list.

If you want to know which recurring groups exist near you: on Wegbegleiter365 groups are sorted by city, district and topic – and you can see how often they meet before you go.