Latest / Style Room: Skincare, confidence & wellness / Why Your Hobbies Feel Like Chores Now (And How to Let Them Go) | Style Room
Transcript
- I used to think that if I wasn’t actively cultivating a hobby, I was failing at life. Then last Tuesday, I looked at my half-finished watercolor set and realized I didn’t miss it at all—I just missed the version of me who had time to pretend she was an artist. Let’s talk about that box in your closet. The one with the knitting needles you bought during that weird pandemic phase, or the journal with the beautiful leather cover that hasn’t seen a pen since March, or maybe it’s the expensive yoga mat rolled up in the corner, gathering dust. We’ve all been there. And let’s be honest, looking at those unused hobbies feels less like a collection of forgotten interests and more like a museum of our own inadequacy. It’s evidence that we promised ourselves we’d be better versions of us, and then… well, life happened. You got busy. Or tired. Or both. And now, every time you walk past that shelf, you get this little pinch of guilt. A whisper saying, 'You’re not doing enough.' But here is what I want you to hear today, and I want you to really let it sink into your bones: that guilt is a lie. It is a completely fabricated narrative sold to you by a culture that thinks productivity is the only metric of worth. When we treat our hobbies like chores, we kill the very thing that makes them vital. We turn play into performance, and suddenly, breathing becomes another task on your to-do list. It’s exhausting. And frankly, it’s unnecessary. When I was working as a dermatology nurse, I saw something fascinating. I would see patients come in with flare-ups of eczema or stress-induced acne, and I’d ask them about their lives. Not just their diets or their sleep, but their joy. Do you have time for you? And almost without exception, the answer was no. They were parents, employees, caregivers, friends. Everyone else came first. And I started to notice a pattern. The skin wasn’t just reacting to stress; it was reacting to the absence of restoration. We stopped doing things that made us feel soft, even if those things were messy or unproductive. I remember one patient, Sarah, who loved baking bread. But after her second child was born, she told me she couldn’t bear the mess of flour. She felt guilty taking two hours to knead dough when there were dishes piling up. So, she stopped. And within six months, her skin barrier was compromised, her anxiety spiked, and she felt this hollow ache in her chest. She thought she was being efficient. She was actually starving herself of the sensory experience that grounded her. Let’s look at the ingredients, not the hype. The ingredient you need right now isn’t more discipline. It’s permission to stop. There is this phrase I love to use, 'Glow from the inside out, literally.' And people usually think I’m talking about hydration or collagen peptides. But I mean it in the soul-deep sense. When you engage in a hobby purely for the sake of engagement, your nervous system downregulates. Your heart rate slows. Your cortisol drops. That’s not woo-woo magic; that’s biology. Think about the last time you truly lost yourself in something. Maybe you were gardening, or drawing, or even just organizing your bookshelf. Did you check your phone? Probably not. Were you thinking about tomorrow’s meetings? Unlikely. You were present. That presence is what heals us. But when we add the pressure of mastery, or the expectation that we must produce a masterpiece, we re-engage the prefrontal cortex. We start judging. And judgment is the enemy of relaxation. If you pick up a paintbrush and the colors are muddy, that’s okay. If your sourdough collapses, that’s okay. The goal isn’t the result. The goal is the thirty minutes where you were allowed to be imperfect. Where you were allowed to be slow. Where you weren’t performing for an audience, because the only audience was you, and you were kind. We live in a world that sells us routines. Oh, I see them everywhere. The five-step morning ritual. The hour-long evening wind-down. The weekend creative block. It’s beautiful, sure. But it’s also incredibly exclusive. It assumes you have control over your time, which many of us simply do not. If you are working two jobs, or caring for aging parents, or navigating the chaos of young children, your 'hobby' might look nothing like the influencer’s. It might look like humming while you fold laundry. It might look like sketching on a napkin during a lunch break. It might look like staring out the window for five minutes while your coffee cools. These are still hobbies. These are still acts of reclaiming your attention. We need to expand our definition of what counts. A hobby doesn’t have to be loud. It doesn’t have to be Instagrammable. It doesn’t even have to involve buying new supplies. Sometimes, the most radical act of self-care is remembering how to sit with boredom. Because boredom is where creativity hides. It’s where your brain gets to wander. But we’ve filled every quiet moment with scrolling, with noise, with distraction. We’ve made silence uncomfortable. And in doing so, we’ve lost the space where our true selves live. This brings me to something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, especially after listening to some of you share your stories. Last week, I was reminded of that episode where we talked about finding peace when a pet leaves home. We framed that silence as a space for recalibration. Well, I think we can apply that same logic to our hobbies. When life gets too loud, when the demands become too heavy, it is not failure to put the knitting away. It is not laziness to close the laptop and step away from the canvas. It is survival. It is wisdom. 'It’s okay to pause,' I say, and I mean it. You don’t have to earn the right to rest through productivity. You don’t have to justify your leisure by making it useful. If you need to take a month off from painting, take it. If you need to quit the writing group because it’s bringing you stress instead of joy, quit it. Life is not a linear path where you collect achievements like badges. It’s a series of seasons. Some seasons are for growing, some are for resting. And right now, if you feel like you’ve abandoned your hobbies, maybe you’re just in a resting season. And that is exactly where you need to be. So, how do we move forward? Not by forcing ourselves back into old habits. Not by setting ambitious goals for the new year. But by starting small. By forgiving ourselves for the gap. By recognizing that the skills are still there, sleeping beneath the dust. Maybe next week, you don’t try to finish the project. Maybe you just touch the materials. Run your fingers over the clay. Smell the oil paints. Listen to the strings of the guitar. Reconnect with the sensory pleasure of the activity, without any expectation of output. Let it be useless. Let it be pointless. Let it be yours. And if you find that you genuinely don’t miss it anymore, that’s okay too. People change. Interests shift. Maybe your hobby has served its purpose, and now it’s time to let it go. There is no shame in outgrowing something. There is only growth. So, look at that box in your closet. Look at it with kindness. Thank it for the joy it brought you when you had time for it. And then, decide what you want to do next. Not what you think you should do. What you want. Because you deserve to spend your energy on things that make you feel alive, not things that make you feel guilty. Take a deep breath with me. In. And out. You are doing enough. You are enough. I’ll see you next time.