You Need Hobbies: Reason #211
I’ve been working on a big project. It’s a lofty idea with lots of moving parts.
This blog is not about the content of that idea.
Instead, I want to talk about motivation and where I find it when I get stuck.
A few weeks ago, I noticed that I wasn’t moving forward on my big idea.
I was at a standstill. It wasn’t just on this big project, but I also stalled work on some smaller goals, too.
There are a lot of strategies to get unstuck and one Google search will likely 600 million results.
Here’s a story about 2 of my favorite strategies.
On Saturday morning, I went to a home decor store with my daughters. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular.
And I found exactly what I needed.
My daughters are obsessed with bunnies. So when I found an adorable princess bunny table runner, pillows immediately came to mind.
I am so fortunate to have sewing skills. My mom is an accomplished fiber artist, representing her work in many art exhibitions.
Coming from a line of fiber artists, learning to sew was a life skill she passed down to me and a hobby I still celebrate. My house is full of duvet covers, curtains and other handcrafts. (Catch me on zoom, and you’ll see some my mom and I made in my background.)
In my busy day-to-day, sitting down at my sewing machine rarely happens. But the early muscle memory to thread the machine or wind a bobbin runs deep, and the consistent purr of the machine over a piece of fabric brings me so much peace. I also love the puzzles and math that new projects bring, especially when there is no real pattern to follow - which may be my favorite.
The princess bunny table runner was the perfect project. It ticked two of my most important boxes in my Burnout Preparedness Toolkit and now my Get-Unstuck Toolkit, too.
1 - Find a creative outlet
2 - Mindfully complete something start to finish
Find a creative outlet:
I believe that we are all creative, resourceful and whole people.
And I believe that creativity - however you define it - is critical to leading a well-lived life.
Leaning into a creative hobby reaps so many more rewards than two adorable princess bunny pillows, for example.
Hobbies sit in two categories - old favorites and new discoveries. You get to have both.
For those raising kids, I find so much effort is put into trying out and then perfecting activities during childhood. These can be the early basis for hobbies - they were for me, and that’s really important.
And when we’re super focused on developing other people’s varied interests, it’s easy to forget that we can always learn something new, too.
The challenge is to choose our own growth to learn something new, too. It can be a powerful form of self-care, if you subscribe to that word.
You know I like to keep it real and attainable at Pull the Focus. As I talked about in my post What Do I Do If I’m Already Burned Out, I suggest you start with the smallest thing possible.
What’s the smallest effort you can put into learning something new?
What’s possible when you look back at hobbies you dabbled with as a kid and brought them into the light as an adult?
The other box my princess bunny pillows checked was all about the celebration when I handed off the finished product to two eager little girls who couldn’t be more excited that the table runner we bought the day before had transformed into two separate pillows.
Mindfully complete something start to finish:
When you’re working on something new and challenging like I am, the end can feel far away.
In normal day-to-day life - especially for the highly ambitious women I coach - interruptions are the norm, not the exception. They often end their days feeling like no single task on the to do list finished.
Specifically carving out time and choosing a small creative activity that you can start AND finish brings a sense of reward, which activates positive vibes.
This is especially true when you set an intention that the activity is not something to “get through” but rather an experience to cultivate joy.
The completion is meant for celebration - to feel the big feelings of accomplishment, not the misguided productivity loop where you just need to get something done.
How will you choose to celebrate your next small accomplishment?