I’ve learned a lot from my various hobbies. Until recently, though, I didn’t realize exactly how much I’ve gotten out of them. Here are some of the lessons my hobbies have taught me.
Juggling has shown me a better way to accomplish big goals. Instead of attempting to conquer the entire goal in one go, I build up to it by accomplishing smaller goals and winning small victories. That allows me to develop the skills and acquire the knowledge necessary to take on big tasks while minimizing frustration.
Although I only play with my Rubik’s Cube on occasion, I’ve still learned a lot from it. Just like with the cube, so many things in life involve patterns. By learning the patterns, extremely difficult tasks become extremely simple and I can do things that seem impossible. Even if it takes a lot of time and practice to learn and master the patterns, it can be done. This has served me well in everything from my hobbies to personal growth to my various jobs.
From swing dancing, I’ve learned how helpful a good teacher can be. I was basically a beginner when I started swing dancing regularly in July of 2017 and, thanks to a lot of instruction from some great teachers, I reached the intermediate/advanced level at Classic City Swing in September of 2018. In addition to great instruction and lots of practice from dancing regularly, this accomplishment came from focusing on fundamentals and getting the small things right; that makes everything easier in every skill.
Unicycling showed me that even if something seems hopeless, if it’s possible for somebody to do, I can probably learn it given enough time. Something may seem impossible but I’ll keep making progress and eventually get where I want to go if I stick with it. As with the previous point about swing dancing, having help from a skilled teacher who gave me several good pointers around small details made a big difference and allowed me to progress much more quickly. Also, unicycling showed me that balance can be greatly improved over time, even in my case with having poor natural balance.
Even one of my most recent hobbies, rola bola, has taught me some valuable lessons. Mainly, it’s shown me how much skills from one hobby can transfer to another. Rola bola was easy to pick up after almost two years of unicycling had given me pretty solid balance. In fact, I picked up rola bola right away and didn’t need to practice much to get good at it. This has made me wonder what other skills I may be able to pick up pretty easily with the abilities that I’ve already developed.
Although these aren’t the only hobbies I’ve had, they’re the ones I’ve done the most consistently over my life and the ones with which I have the most skill. I’m sure my past and future hobbies also contain useful life lessons. What have you learned from your hobbies? I’d love to hear about it.