I Spent a Year Indulging My Hobbies–and This is What I Learned

My last years living in Manhattan felt like a rollercoaster I couldn't get off. All I did was work. My hobbies consisted of answering emails and doing laundry. Sure, I got promoted every year, but my heart was screaming, run. So I did. I left the city for Raleigh, North Carolina and decided to do something novel with the next year of my life.

I wanted to do all those things I never had time for—bake, play piano, plant a garden, and the list went on. As my New Year's resolution, I vowed to do a hobby a day, and I'd post a photo of it on Instagram to track my journey. What could go wrong?

On January 1, I pulled out a new cookbook and off I went. For the first time, I baked rosemary focaccia and crusty French bread. Turns out, yeast doesn't take a PhD. All it takes is time to bubble, then hours to rise. Once I decided I had time, the possibilities poured in. I made scones and fettuccine. I even learned how to ride a OneWheel and tried sound mediation—all in the name of hobbying.

By April, I had a new mantra: There is something fun to do today, and I'm going to find it, even if it was just taking a walk. And somewhere along the way, something magical started to happen: the more something I did, the more something happened. I discovered a local theater and signed up for an acting class. Neighbors thanked me for biscotti with flower bulbs to plant. It felt like the more time I carved out for me, the more hours I got back to fill.

Then something the opposite of magical started to happen. My hobbies didn't always feel joyful. Sometimes the dough didn't rise, or the bread burned. The end product wasn't always suitable for social media. My hobbies became wins and losses in my mind, until it began to feel like I was failing at something bigger. So I pushed my hobby limits even further. I tried harder, with soft pretzels and sourdough. I even dedicated an entire day to picking sunflowers—surely this would give me joy!—but it didn't help. As the year stretched on, with the usual onslaught of bad news in the world and my own personal issues, I asked my husband if crying was a hobby. He said no.

One fall afternoon, I admitted to a friend that I felt lost. I was sad. I was struggling. Then she said this: "Well, you couldn't tell from your Instagram feed."

It was a knife through my heart. My intentions were good, I wanted to scream. But looking back at my pictures, I realized that my hobbies had become performative, all for the Insta photos. I'd chosen to hide my real emotions behind a phone and write a caption for other people instead.

That day in September, I felt like a fraud. I wanted to quit, but I decided to pay closer attention to my hobbies instead. I learned the difference between ones I loved and ones that only photographed well—and chose to stop doing the latter. I also learned many things I love to do are too precious to caption, like memorizing lines in a play or practicing piano during lunch. On those days, people got a picture of my dog. (Which they probably preferred anyway.) And you know what? The magic came back.

What I learned from my year of hobbies is that prioritizing your joy no matter who's watching will open doors you didn't know were closed. What's more, there will be new things to love behind them. Yes, it takes courage to walk through, but simply doing something for yourself can make any day worth a photo—whether you post it on Instagram or not.

Looking for a New Hobby to Try?

Since my year-long hobby adventure, I always get the same question: Which ones stuck? Here are five (very simple) hobbies I still do week after week, plus tricks I found that made them easier to adopt. They might work for you, too.