5 Hobbies Everyone Should Have to Create a Life You Love → A More Beautiful Life Collective

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So many of us are feeling burnt out and too busy. We feel like we need more self-care in our lives, but we don’t know where to start. What if instead of starting with a bubble bath and glass of wine – we started with getting our hands active by learning a new hobby? In this post, we’re talking about the importance of having at least 5 hobbies to cultivate your life.

S2E23 – How to Delight in God: Your Bible Study at Home Guide – A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast

In this episode, we are talking about the basics of how to start a quiet time routine at home. Your Bible Study at Home can be a vibrant life-giving time. By including worship, prayer, and Bible reading, this can become your favorite time of day. You'll learn how to do this and more in this episode. Read more at the blog post: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/how-to-delight-in-god-your-bible-study-at-home-guide/ Get our Bible Study at Home Guide here: https://a-more-beautiful-life-collective.kit.com/99505f5a83 Get our FREE Color the Bible tracker here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/free-color-the-bible-reading-tracker/ Visit our Shop to get a copy of any of the resources mentioned in this episode: I’m your host, Cayce Fletcher, and you can learn a little bit more about me here. While you’re here, would you consider leaving a comment, rating, or review? You can find our podcast, A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube. Subscribe to the blog for access to our latest content and some freebies. Want to support A More Beautiful Life Collective in the creation of podcasts, posts, and other resources? You can make a one-time, monthly, or yearly donation here. I love creating and sharing resources with you. You can find all of our resources at A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop. Keep creating a life you love, and cultivating your heart for God.

Hey everyone, and welcome to Season 2 Episode 11 of a More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast. I’m your host, Cayce Fletcher, and today we are going to be focusing a little bit more on how to create a life you love. We first talked about what the Bible says about pleasure, and then we looked at how to create a life we love. Today, we are going to be talking about something crucial to creating a lovely life: Hobbies. We’re going to look at why hobbies are beneficial and then we’ll think about what kinds of hobbies are the best ones to have.

How do we cultivate our lives?

The smell of coffee floated through my kitchen as I looked out my window and breathed a sigh of relief. Today, I had a glorious afternoon of quiet by myself, with only the dog to keep my company. The kids were at their grandparents, and so I inaugurated my free time with a latte.

As I sipped from the steaming cup, I began to wonder. What was I going to do?

I had several uninterrupted hours that I wanted to make the most of. But, what would be the best use of my time? My house always needs cleaning, but I didn’t want to spend my one free afternoon doing that. I try to work on most days on my blog during naptime, but this was a free weekend. I wanted to do something for myself. But, what?

At its heart, this question is about so much more than just how to while away the hours alone. It’s about who we are when we step away from all the responsibilities that define us. When I’m not a mother, housekeeper, writer – what am I? What do I enjoy doing? What fascinates me? What makes me love my life?

For some of you, this question seems laughable. You are racing from your job to picking up the kids. Just trying to keep the laundry going and a meal on the table is what consumes your days. You crash at night, falling asleep as soon as you turn out the light by your bed (or more likely – in front of the glow of the television screen). Uninterrupted hours? That’s just a pipe dream unless you are a stay-at-home mom right?

Well, no. Busy seasons do come and go. But, even for the busiest person on the planet, the 24/7 pace finally catches up with you, and eventually, you will slow down. Who are you when you do?

This may be the root of most mid-life crises. In those grueling first few years of adulthood, you are climbing the corporate ladder, earning degrees, and rearing young children. You barely have enough time to breathe.

But, those seasons end. Kids get older and more independent. The degree gets hung up on a wall. The promotions come (though the hours can stay long without firm boundaries). After 5, 10, or 15 years of the grind, you come up for air and realize that you are a shell of the person you once were. How do you fill that space?

I’ve heard older mothers exhort young women to make sure that they take that time for themselves to develop who they are as a person. Though it may not seem that way in a season of spit-up clothes and changing diapers, the kids will be grown and flown in a blink. Once they are gone, you have to live with yourself… and your spouse. You need to be cultivating your life as well as your kids.

5 Hobbies to Cultivate Your Life

How do we cultivate our lives? In our podcast on 5 Ways to Create a Life You Love, we talked about how we need to work in rhythms and routines that we love – that make our heart sing – into our day. The way to create a lovely life is to do more of the simple things we love. Most of us would call these simple things hobbies. According to Google, “hobbies are an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.” They are things we do to bring some joy and satisfaction to our lives. Things we do because we simply love doing them.

But, so many of us don’t know what we love. As children, our lives are dictated by school and sports. We are shuffled from one event to the next. In college, we split our time between resume-building activities, jobs, classes, and social activities. Adulthood brings all the trials we’ve already mentioned. And, we realize at some point that we need some joy-bringers in our lives. But, we don’t even know where to begin.

I believe this is a new problem, brought about by the modern supply chain and public education outside of the home. Most of what we call hobbies now used to just be a way of life. It was a way of survival. You sewed quilts to keep you warm in the winter. You dipped candles so you could see. Gardening meant meals on the table, and woodworking was the only way to have bowls, spoons, and furniture.

Now, all of these things are done on a sporadic basis. If we are interested in them and try to learn more about them as a hobby, we often get discouraged. Our first attempts and a knit scarf look like a 5-year-old did it. The quilt goes unfinished in a closet. Your child’s cross stitch stocking is laying on the floor unfinished and the years tick on. Why? Because it’s hard.

It’s much easier to go and buy something from the store than make it yourself. Since we haven’t been learning these skills since toddlerhood, we struggle. That struggle just further impedes our ability to grow. That coupled with the lack of time to sit down and do the hobby just means that the hobby doesn’t get done.

On top of it all, these hobbies don’t necessarily seem all that essential now. In years past, if someone didn’t can (or even earlier – ferment) their vegetables, they wouldn’t have anything to eat. If they didn’t brew a batch of beer, they wouldn’t have anything to drink. If they didn’t sew the dress or knit the socks, they wouldn’t have any clothes. Now? We can go to the store and pick up all of those items for under $50 even accounting for inflation.

Even beyond the handicrafts, what about the other hobbies? Why go kayaking when I can lay by the pool? Why go hiking when I can stream hours of content on Netflix? Why sit in a cold deerstand to hunt for my meat when I can get a sandwich and coffee in 2 minutes at McDonald’s? Why should we pursue these hobbies? Most of us couldn’t name 5 hobbies we have.

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Why Hobbies Are Important

It’s only in this current modern context that we think that any work should be tied to a monetary value and leisure should be solely for entertainment. Hobbies flip that narrative on its head. The work becomes the joy and entertainment. It’s a way to cultivate our heads, hearts, and bodies.

You should have a hobby because:

Hobbies can improve your mental and physical health and life satisfaction. According to Harvard Health, “A study published online Sept. 11, 2023, by Nature Medicine suggests that having a hobby is good for your health, mood, and more. Compared with people who didn’t have hobbies, those who did reported better health, more happiness, fewer symptoms of depression, and higher life satisfaction.”
Hobbies help fight against workplace idolatry and performance-related issues. A hobby helps you to see the bigger picture outside of work (or home or family) while investing in yourself.
Hobbies are the best mode of soul care. Self-care often prioritizes consumption and apathy to create happiness. Soul care focuses on active participation in your life to create something that brings you and others happiness.
Hobbies help you to cultivate your unique identity and gifts while being a blessing to others. Through hobbies, you get to pursue your interests. You are filling your cup. Often, our hobbies also spill into others’ lives as you can bless them with homemade quilts, sourdough bread, produce from the garden, beautiful pictures, and more.

Hobbies are a way that we can find pleasure in our lives and even pleasure in God. We have to be mindful that our hobbies do not pull us away from God. When we pursue hobbies as an escape from our responsibilities and time with God, they become idols.

John Piper recommends asking ourselves the following questions about our hobbies:

Does it cause your heart to exalt God or the world?
Does it refresh you?
Does it point others to Christ?

These questions can keep us mindful of the role we are assigning to the hobbies that we have in our lives. Most of us though are not falling into the trap of idolizing the hobbies that we are focusing on cultivating. Our hobbies almost all have to do with mindless screen time – social media, video games, or sports. These hobbies often pull us away from God and leave us feeling worn out. But, there are hobbies out there that rejuvenate us, leave us in awe of God, and provide useful resources for our friends and families. Through these hobbies, we become a help to others. These hobbies help us to live out our calling.

Hobbies are ritual pursuits. When we order our loves rightly, our hobbies can help us to glorify God and serve those around us.

The Death of the Life-Giving Hobby

Melanie Hempe, the founder of Screen Strong, has often used the following metric to determine whether kids are on screens too much. Instead of looking at screen time, she simply asks kids to name 5 hobbies or activities that they enjoyed doing outside of screens.

She says that you can always tell which kids have good firm boundaries surrounding their screen time when they can rattle off their interests. Those 5 hobbies show a well-rounded life. But, the kids who spend their time in their rooms on their phones for hours and hours often struggle to come up with one interest outside of their digital world. Their life is their phone.

I think this is an important question to ask your kids or the young people around you, but let’s stop for a second and think about your answer to this question. Can you think of 5 hobbies or interests that you have outside of screens? Yes, most of us are dividing our time between caring for kids, and our jobs, and taking care of our homes. But, most of us still have a little bit of free time outside of that. Do you have any hobbies that fill that free time? Or do you fill it simply with TV or social media?

What would your 5 hobbies be?

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The Magic Number of ‘5’ – Creating a List of 5 Hobbies

Why 5 hobbies? Well, it shows a well-rounded person who has interests in a variety of things. We’ve all met someone who has dived into one topic and made that topic their personality. That’s okay, but the person may seem a little bit lopsided. It’s much better to cultivate your life with a variety of different things.

What types of hobbies should we have?

Instead of making a list of 5 similar hobbies – like saying your hobbies are pickleball, tennis, disc golf, volleyball, and basketball, think of the 5 hobbies as something that is investing in different parts of your life. The 5 hobbies are based on 5 pillars that help you to grow.

Messe Frankfurt recommends the following categories for your 5 hobbies: (1) Financial Stability, (2) Physical Health, (3) Mental Health, (4) Personal Growth, and (5) Spiritual Growth. Kat Kamalani recommends that everyone have at least four hobbies: (1) Something that makes you money, (2) Something that fulfills your romantic relationship with your partner, (3) Something that makes you creative, and (4) Something that helps our body and our health.

Both of these ideas come from the ‘5 hobbies rule’ which according to Alyssa Tabit means you should have 5 hobbies that serve different purposes. The categories for the 5 hobbies change based on your life context.

The categories for your 5 hobbies are:

One hobby that can make you money. This is a hobby outside of your day job that helps you to make and manage your money. Some hobbies could include blogging, photography, personal finance, couponing, crafting, or creating. This can be a fulfilling way to cultivate creativity, add room to your budget, and help you feel like you are accomplishing something.

Some hobbies include:

Blogging & Social Media
Photography
Personal Finance
Couponing
Crafting, like knitting, crocheting, or quilting
Sewing and Alterations
Woodworking
Handyman Repairs

One hobby that helps our bodies and health. Sports and easy access to gym facilities help to make your teenage and college years some of the fittest of your lives. As you head into middle age – with a spouse, kids, and a demanding job – your health often gets put on the back burner. Yes, we all know that we need to have 30 minutes of exercise a day. Yes, going for a walk or run every day is a great way to get outside and get moving. Yes, a fitness class at the local gym helps provide you with accountability. But, why does it seem that knowing all of these things never translates into healthier lives? Part of this is because we try to rely on our willpower to cultivate duty-based habits. It’s much better to rely on our circumstances and interests to cultivate our desire for the activity. This is where hobbies come in. Instead of going to the gym for the obligatory 30-minute workout, find a hobby that helps keep you healthy and active. Finding a health-based hobby can keep you fit and doing something you enjoy.

Some hobbies include:

Hiking
Swimming
Rowing
Pickleball
Adult Group Sports, like Softball, Baseball, Basketball, or Volleyball
Disc Golf
Yoga
Running (particularly if you’re training for a race)
Rucking
Biking

One hobby that helps us connect with our families and others. The sky is the limit when it comes to this hobby. Often, hobbies fall into the self-care category. We think that we should be doing this hobby alone by ourselves or with a group of people we’ve met in conjunction with the hobby. But, we can also pursue hobbies with our spouses, family, and friends that bring us closer together. Many people already do some form of this with their kids and their sports. But, instead of allowing culture to dictate how you connect with the people around you, choose for yourselves how you want to spend time with your family. Choosing and investing in a family hobby will bring you closer together while providing play and relaxation in your lives. It’s a win-win.

Some hobbies include:

Any of the health and fitness hobbies listed above
Fishing and Hunting
Camping
Pinball
Board Games
Homesteading and Livestock
Book Clubs and Read Alouds
Cooking and Baking

One hobby that makes us creative. Because of screens, many of us are just consuming other people’s creative content. We get gorged on cat videos, beautiful Pinterest photos, and Instagram reels perfectly curated to match your algorithm. In all of this, we never stop to produce anything with our minds and hands. Just like we feel sluggish when we consume too many calories without burning them, I think our brains and souls feel sluggish when we consume too much content without creating anything ourselves. At the same time, we don’t necessarily *need* to create anything. We can find a cheaper (poorly made) pre-packaged version on Amazon and have it delivered to our house with the click of a button. Creating takes work – both in the actual making of the thing and in the learning of the skill. As I said before, we have to be okay with creating things that are lackluster because we are learning things that people in the past used to learn as children.

Some hobbies include:

Knitting
Crocheting
Painting & Watercolors
Nature Journaling
Sewing
Quilting
Woodworking
Gardening
Baking
Canning & Preserving Foods
Writing
Photography
Learn an instrument

One hobby that helps us to grow spiritually and intellectually. Lastly, we need to cultivate our inner life. In a 2024 study, half of US adult respondents said that they hadn’t read a book in the past year. Many people believe that watching shorts and reels qualifies as a well-read education. The average amount of time spent reading a blog post is 52 seconds, even for posts that are 2000 words long. I firmly believe that you should cultivate your reading life. But, more than that you should cultivate the rest of your reading life. Charlotte Mason calls this Mother Culture. It is spending your adult years learning more about the world and the content that interests you. It is becoming truly educated, even if you felt like you weren’t as a child. We need hobbies that keep cultivating that Mother Culture in our lives.

Some hobbies include:

Reading
Morning Pages and Journaling
Nature Journaling
Blogging
Bible Journaling

So you’ve got your 5 hobbies… now what?

Pick a hobby.

First, you need to look through the list and see what interests you. You can get my downloadable copy of 100 Hobbies to help give you more ideas.

Make the time.

After you peruse through the list and start picking out some hobbies that catch your eye, you need to make a plan to start working that hobby into your life. Otherwise, it will go on your list of Someday Pipe Dreams and never be accomplished.

Make sure that you don’t make the mistake of trying to start all 5 hobbies at once. Pick one and make that the focus of the upcoming month. Or dedicate 5 days over the upcoming month to spend on your hobbies, one day per hobby.

Learn the basics.

Find a mentor, online course, blog, or book to help acquaint you with the basics of what you need to know. There are so many resources available about hobbies that there is no way I could list them all here. YouTube is your best friend. Before jumping in, learn the basics of what you need to know.

Gather supplies.

Gather the supplies you need and set up your workstation (or environment) to make doing your hobby a habit. It needs to be easy to find your stuff otherwise you’ll never do it.

Stay consistent.

At first, doing your hobby will sound like fun. But, after the first couple of times filled with trials, errors, and failed attempts, it may start to sound less appealing. I’m currently teaching my son his letters. He doesn’t always enjoy sitting down and writing, but the more we practice the more confident he is. Now, he fills pages of copy paper with his scribbles. Give yourself space to fail and grow. Most importantly, you just have to consistently make the time over the course of months and years to grow and improve in your hobby.

My 5 Hobbies:

Here are the 5 hobbies that I want to work on including in my life. Some of these are hobbies that I have been working on for a while. Others are new hobbies that I want to start (or restart).

One hobby that can make you money: Blogging and podcasting is definitely this hobby for me! It provides a creative outlet that also offers an opportunity to make money.
One hobby that helps our bodies and health: It’s tricky to find an exercise that I can do with young kids, especially while pregnant. We’ve been focusing on cooking more foods from scratch. I would like to begin gardening next year. (It’s almost time to put your garlic in the ground!) I would also like to begin some kind of exercise routine, perhaps running. The next hobby below would also help with this.
One hobby that helps us connect with our families and others: I love to hike and I think hiking (and camping) is one activity that is so beneficial for the whole family. My goal is to go on a longer hike at least once a month in addition to daily nature walks.
One hobby that makes us creative: I want to learn how to sew and eventually start quilting and making clothes. I just have to get started!
One hobby that helps us to grow spiritually and intellectually: Reading is this hobby for me. I always have a book in my hand.

Creating a Life You Love by Cultivating Your 5 Hobbies

Hobbies can help you to practice self-care while connecting with others. They are low-tech and productive; you can see measurable progress over time. Cultivating 5 Hobbies – 1 to make you money, 1 to connect with friends and family, 1 to keep you healthy, 1 to be creative, and 1 to cultivate your spiritual and intellectual life – will help you to have a well-rounded life.

What types of hobbies do you have now? What hobby do you wish you could learn? Comment below.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog and podcast for the latest episodes.

Until next time, keep creating a life you love and cultivating your heart for God.

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