If you have a hobby you love, I have a question for you:
Do you feel like you have to give it up when life gets busy?
I get it – I used to abandon my hobbies the moment I sensed my calendar starting to fill up. There was a point when I thought this was the right thing to do! (That story here.) But over time, I’ve realized that engaging in a meaningful hobby (even briefly) can actually help carry you through your busiest seasons of life.
Hobbies are important – they’re exactly the thing that can ground you in the chaos, reenergize you, and keep you connected to yourself while you’re meeting life’s demands.
But how do we prioritize our hobbies when there are so many other things needing our attention? Here’s my trick: I like to turn a hobby into a meaningful personal project. It gives a bit more direction, purpose, and structure to your hobby, making it something you can return back to with little resistence, even if time is short.
(If you can get one started before the storm hits, the momentum will help you stick with it!)
So let’s see if we can expand your hobby into a grounding and meaningful personal project that will anchor you in your busiest seasons.
(And if you’re still trying to find a hobby that fits, start here: How to Make ‘Finding Your Hobby’ a Grounding Personal Project)
How to turn your hobby into a meaningful project
Let’s say you do have a hobby already – something you enjoy doing every so often, but not necessarily a project.
How do we turn it into one?
You can turn a hobby into a project by giving it purpose, structure, and continuity.
I was recently revisiting an old post I had made about running. If running is your hobby, turning it into a meaningful project could look like training for a charity race! You’re not just going for runs whenever anymore – you’re hitting the pavement with purpose, committing to a schedule, and watching your progress carry you closer toward your goal.
Here are four simple ways to project-ify your hobby:
- Document it. Start a blog, a scrapbook, a photo gallery, a video montage, or a journal about it! The documentation itself can be the project. You can document the learning process, your progress, the outcomes, or even how that hobby has impacted your life.
- Commit to a class or join a group. These can help you add some structure, work toward a goal, connect with others, and continue showing up!
- Enter a challenge (or create your own). This is like race day! There are community challenges out there, some larger ones I know of are Inktober (for sketching) or NaNoWriMo (for creative writing). You could adapt these types of challenges to your own hobbies as well: For 30 days you will… Learn a dance routine. Every week for the next 4 weeks, you will… Try cooking a new cuisine. Every quarter this year, you will… plan out one area of your dream garden.
- Share it (if that motivates you). So long as it doesn’t add more stress, you could open a social media account, and posting to it regularly would be your project!
Shaping your project to make it grounding
As you develop your project, think about how you can make it meaningful, low-stakes, balancing, and engaging. Together, these aspects are what will give your personal project its grounding effect.
This project should be meaningful.
Finding meaning in what you’re doing supports your sense of wellbeing. As important as our demanding day jobs may be, they don’t always offer that personal, soul-level sense of meaning, especially when we’re slogging through our busiest weeks.
And what exactly makes it “meaningful”? That’s unique to you! It could be something you’ve always wanted to try, a message you wish to deliver to the world, some form of authentic self-expression, supporting a cause important to you…
When the project is meaningful to you, it’ll give you perspective. You won’t feel so much like work and other responsibilities are “all there is”.
Make your project low-stakes.
I know it’s really tempting to go the extra mile with these meaningful personal projects. We want to excel, to accomplish great things, and maybe we feel the need to justify our time spent doing them.
But we need to be careful not to compound our stress by giving ourselves extra deadlines or anxiety over performance and achievement. This should be fun – something you want to make time for!
That being said, I do recommend challenging yourself a bit. The challenge will pull in your focus and lead to progress and accomplishment, and those little wins are so important when life is chaotic. Just don’t let the challenge take over. Avoid making commitments to others that you can’t uphold, promising “deliverables” that people are expecting, and holding yourself to standards or timeframes that do more harm than good.
Find a project that helps you feel more balanced.
To feel balanced, you need to have a sense of autonomy, accomplishment, and authenticity as you go through your day (or week). We can use this as a guide to shape our project:
- Retain your autonomy (do it your way).
- Celebrate the little wins as you progress (savour your accomplishment).
- Show up to your project authentically.
Seek out those elements in general, but also consider whether or not you’ll share what you’re working on with these in mind.
I spent a little while writing blog posts just in private Word documents on my laptop. It helped me feel out my authentic voice and gave me full autonomy over what I was doing. I only started publishing this blog when I felt up for the added challenge (and this made the project a lot more meaningful).
If you do wish to share, I wouldn’t advise making that the main purpose unless you really love sharing your work. This ups the ante a bit and can sometimes push us to be less authentic than we want as we navigate the line between creating for us and for other people.
Let your project steal your focus.
It’s hard to mentally “switch off” when it’s time to take a break from an intense workload. It becomes much easier when you have a project that’s really important to you!
Whether it’s the sense of purpose, the joy of doing it, or the message behind it, if it really draws your focus in, you’re practically guaranteed to “switch off” your work brain for a bit.
Even though working on a project seems productive, it can actually be a form of rest that will leave you with a clearer state of mind when you have to get back to your day job. Filling a journal could give you mental rest. Being playful and creative without rules facilitates creative rest. Working on a project that supports a cause could even serve as spiritual rest.
Committing amidst the chaos
So how do we stay committed to this project once the storm hits?
Having a project inherently helps you stay committed and connected to your creativity – it’s intended to make it easier to keep at it when things get busy!
But what if we’re at a point where we can easily just put the project down?
Remember, the goal is grounding. By engaging in our project we are actively resting so that we can show up and do the work we have to do the next day.
Here are a few additional ways to stay accountable and committed.
External accountability:
- Schedule the time. And then don’t ignore your calendar! This isn’t about rigidity so much as protecting your creative time. Treat it like any other appointment, and arrange for help making that happen if you need to. Personally, I use calendar blocking to visualize where and how that time fits in with my day. If something else really must encroach on that time, rather than reduce it or delete it, I do my best to move it so the time isn’t lost.
- Share with others. You don’t necessarily have to share your work (although that can be pretty motivating) – you could casually tell your friends and family what you’re up to. Putting it out there will add a bit of motivation to stick with it.
- Sign up for a class. We mentioned this above but it’s worth repeating here – a class or group is perhaps the easiest way to make sure you show up to your project!
Internal accountability:
- Keep it in context. Know that there will be natural points of attrition that are worthwhile to push through. These squeezes are part of the learning curve, and if you can move through them, you often come out more committed than ever (and more in love with your project).
- Reflect on your Why. Even if we started the project because we felt inspired to do it, sometimes we get stuck just going through the motions. The demands of daily life can make us feel disconnected, and we forget why we started doing it in the first place. Remember what made the project meaningful to you when you started!
- Remember this project is for you. Yes, you can show your work, join groups and block out your calendar to stay accountable and protect your creative space. But remember, the goal of the project is to stay grounded and connect with your creativity.
All that being said, the last thing we need is more pressure. If you feel like you have to force yourself to keep going on this project – stop!
The project is meant to support your autonomy, purpose, and joy – not to be productive, not to prove your worth, and certainly not to add pressure to an already stressful week.
Take a pause if you need to, and see what other areas of your life could use some attention. If you’re feeling depleted, consider what type of rest might be missing.
Lead with curiosity, persist with patience, and you’ll reclaim your energy from an otherwise hectic work week. I would love to hear about what you’re working on this season!
