When you have way too many hobbies

The struggles and merits of being a multi-passionate and the reason why you should have one skill that ties all your hobbies together.

May 17, 2024

Hello there! Harshini here.

If you follow me on Substack Notes, you may have seen this note that I posted while writing this article:

This post covers a similar topic. About managing a lot of hobbies and creating stuff.

I have always been a slacker, flaker, and procrastinator, but, I don’t think I was lazy like my folks told me I was. (Slacking and being lazy are not the same thing, by the way).

There are times when I procrastinate a lot on doing something until I eventually give up. And there are times when I get obsessed with a hobby or skill and utilize that skill to create stuff until I get bored.

I had trouble staying on one thing long enough to make it my purpose in life.

But, I know I’ve always wanted to become an artist who isn’t always starving and whose art is actually loved and demanded by people. I wanted to leave my footprints in this competitive world full of creatives who seem to be on a whole different dimension. Choosing art as my career is quite intimidating.

There was this time when I almost gave up on art because I thought I didn’t stand a chance of making it big like those I admire. At that time, didn’t draw much for a whole year. Even if I tried to get back to it, It just felt forced and repelled me from creating art even more.

This art block was huge but I eventually destroyed it by giving myself breaks, taking it easy, enjoying the process, letting go of my perfectionist tendencies, and slowly easing into the habit of drawing something from time to time.

I may not become an expert, but most of the time, it never took me too long to learn a new skill.

I have always loved to create stuff, learn new things, and keep myself busy. My “me” time would be just me making something and overthinking each step of the creative process (unwanted perfectionism). It’s not really a good thing since I often end up with piles of unfinished artwork, craftwork, articles, etc.

One of the longest I’ve committed to my self-given challenge was that time when I spent my days consistently making designs for clothing and accessories and posting them to a print-on-demand platform. And I kept doing that for 6 months! But, my dreams of building a small online income source flopped.

However, it’s not a complete waste of time and effort because I occasionally get a few sales even though I stopped working on it years ago:

I tried selling merch online with no investment (and how you can too)

Harshini

March 8, 2024

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I have started to create realistic drawings with cheap colored pencils and left them all unfinished. I’ve tried writing a book, tried composing music, took on a one-sketch-a-day challenge, tried creating acrylic paintings, tried making animations, tried making crochet products, tried origami, and tried carving chalk-

Every time I develop a new hobby that I enjoy, I think, “This is it. I found my forte. This is what I am born for”. Until that’s not the case anymore.

I love all my hobbies equally even though I become obsessed with new hobbies for quite some time until I get bored and crave new things to try and learn.

Not the kind of “I’m bored of this and never want to do it again”. But, rather it’s like, “I do want to keep making animations, but I also want to try making a water bottle holder cause that seems fun”.

And the cycle keeps repeating over and over again. But, more often than not, I go back to continuing my old favorite hobbies from time to time.

When I was younger and noticed this weird tendency of mine for the first time, imposter syndrome kicked in.

“Why can’t I have fewer but stable hobbies like other people?”

“Why am I being so inconsistent?”

“Why can’t I stick to one thing and focus on improving that skill?”

“Why am I hopping here and there?”

“What is wrong with me??”

…Maybe I was being narrow-minded when I went through those waves of thoughts. My younger self could not look at the big picture and realize it’s not really a bad thing.

At school, when they require you to introduce yourself with your name, ambition, hobbies, and stuff, no one has ever said, “I have a lot of hobbies, I love them all equally, and I can’t list all of them inside this small answer box!”

The other kids write about one or two hobbies like reading, watching TV, or drawing. If you have the kind of hobbies that others won’t understand unless you explain,

And if you’re the quiet kid, who avoids saying “I carve chalk, fold papers, draw stuff, and crochet as my hobbies” so that others won’t bombard you with questions,

Two things happen.

One, You will end up writing something similar to what others write like drawing, reading, or writing as your hobby.

And two, you would one hundred percent feel like a total outcast.

When you have multiple hobbies, and they are constantly being replaced with more new hobbies, you can’t do them all at once because of being born as a mere mortal with limited time and limbs.

People around you will keep getting mixed signals from you because, in their eyes, you just look like a lazy and irresponsible slacker who just can’t bring themselves to fully commit to one thing and make it a full-time job.

I changed my way of thinking. Recently, I started to think that maybe trying out a lot of hobbies is my hobby.

I saw people who embrace the fact that they are constantly hopping from learning one skill to another.

But, they had one consistent skill to tie all their other skills together. For example, I saw a YouTuber who learns new skills, records his progress, and shares them in videos.

If he hadn’t started a YouTube channel, built the habit of consistently creating and uploading videos, and made it his full-time job, he may have landed a typical minimum-wage job.

I wonder if he would have trouble staying in one job even if he gets overwhelmed and exhausted from doing the same mundane thing. (Of course, this is just my hypothesis).

I wouldn’t be able to live a mundane life by going against my nature of getting into every hobby that I find interesting.

I found the name for addressing people who have multiple interests. Apparently, they are called “multipotentialites”.

It has always been a thing but, most of us are not even aware that this term exists. Take me for example, I found something like this exists just recently, only after going through an existential crisis multiple times.

As a multipotentialite, I realized that I have to build one skill that can tie all my other hobbies together. Or I will struggle with finding my place.

That’s one of the reasons why I started this newsletter publication. To build the skill of consistently writing and publishing articles. To destroy my bad habit of creating something and giving up halfway. And to focus on developing the skill of being consistent with my writing hobby.

(The other reasons are to share what I learned, find more readers, etc.)

Consistency is a skill that we all have to build, especially some of us who struggle with staying on one goal until we achieve it.

But, I’ll never stop creating until… who knows when I’ll stop?

My current hobbies are, writing articles for my newsletter, learning digital art, watching anime, and making comics.

Now it’s your turn to tell. What are your hobbies?

And how do you feel about them? (I would love to hear about it!)

Harshini writes

I tried selling merch online with no investment (and how you can too)

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