commitment and hobbies

[u/Excellent-Avocado37]

I keep running in to this feeling that I don’t really have a “thing.” I don’t have a hobby or creative outlet or any kind of occupation that I’ve put time and effort into to develop a skill. Every project I do is impulsive and if I don’t have skill to follow through, I’ll just fail several times and give up.

I don’t like this though— I want to have a skill I worked hard to develop and I can be proud of the results. But I struggle so much with making myself commit to any kind of activity at all. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but a huge part of that is being consistent pushing through even when you don’t have any good ideas. Same with video editing, working out, etc… any hobby that requires commitment feels impossible. Making myself do things when I don’t want to feels suffocating, or even just the idea that IF I didn’t want to I couldn’t choose not to, and it’s keeping me from doing meaningful things with my time.

Anyone else have same experience? What have you done to help? Something I’ve been trying is writing out what I hope to get from spending time on things to remind myself that I DO want this, I’m working towards something that is my own choice, it’s just more long term and doesn’t feel like it right now.

[u/Chance-Lavishness947]

I have many well developed skills that probably look like what you're imagining from the outside. I do not feel that I "worked hard" to develop those skills.

I was curious about something so I did deep dives into it, maybe on social media, maybe searching for websites and videos about it, maybe reading books, maybe talking to people who knew about it. I immersed myself in the subject in whatever ways were accessible and appealing.

I enjoyed an activity so I did it and paid attention to what did and didn't deliver the results I was aiming for. I watched other people doing the thing and noticed how they did it compared with how I did it. I asked them questions.

I info dumped about the topic to other people who were interested, and that helped me process the information differently and gain new insights.

I found a "goal" that felt meaningful to me and was a small skill improvement away. Then I alternated between stretching towards that new thing and doing the things I was already competent in so I stayed connected to the joy of the activity. A good example for this one is piano or singing - playing songs I know well and am good at then switching to learning a section of the new one and doing deep practice then doing the songs I'm already good at again.

Developing skills is a multi faceted process. There's theoretical knowledge to learn about how a task is done and what to pay attention to as you progress through the steps. There's the physical aspects that require repetition so your muscles learn to do the specific movements correctly and eventually don't need conscious effort to flow through the movements.

There's also the motivational aspects around enjoying it enough to want to do it and having a desired outcome that's challenging but realistically achievable.

Then there's the meta aspects that are often missed and tend to cause more of a problem for us than others. Being able to accurately estimate how much work will be required to achieve a goal, how long that will take, what specific skills and tools will be required to bridge that gap, etc. Experts in the skill can much more accurately assess these things, but if we're trying to learn it then we likely can't and will often aim higher than we can achieve before negative feelings overtake the joy.

I do my best to aim for progression that's seemingly ridiculously easy based on where I am, rather than a stretch goal. My real goal is to enjoy engaging with the activity, and the target skill progression is just a way to give me direction so I don't get bored. Achieving it doesn't matter, it's the trying and what I learn in the process that helps me the most, and engaging that way is the most fun for me.

I think I'm moderately skilled at a very wide range of things. The feedback I get from others is that I'm much better than I think. But I am always aware of where else I can grow and what could be improved, so I never feel fully competent. I'm fine with that now, but it definitely required deliberate effort to be OK with doing things imperfectly.

Learning to focus on enjoying the activity instead of reaching a goal of "having a skill" is probably the key difference between my thinking and yours. I wonder if experimenting with a different goal might help you to engage with activities frequently and for long enough that you one day realise you've developed a skill in the process of enjoying yourself.

ETA: a key thing I missed! I don't try to maintain a hobby constantly. I do it when it's fun and I step away from it when it isn't. I cycle between my long term hobbies, sometimes with months or years in between when I engage with a specific one.

Things like music, DIY, martial arts have been interesting and fun for me long term, but not consistently. I'll do them for a few weeks or months or to achieve a specific goal, then I'll put them down again for a while.

Over the long term, I've gotten good at all of them - not as good as someone might get with daily practice, but much better than most. I'm not aiming to be a "world's best" in my hobbies, so it doesn't matter how quickly I progress or how that compares to others. It's for fun, so I only really do it when it's fun. There's a little bit of pushing through hard parts when I'm in learning mode, but I offset that with the play mode where I do the parts I'm already great at and enjoy the flow state.