So, let’s talk about hobbies. You may be thinking, who needs or has time for them anyway? Between school, work, chores, Netflix, social media, and sleeping, there just never seems to be enough time or energy or money to do anything else. Well, do not fear, dear reader, for I had the exact same predicament several years ago when I realized that basically I had zero hobbies and all I did was study and it was resulting in severe nuclear levels of burnout.
And so, in today’s article, I will share a system I created that helped me pick hobbies that reinvigorated me and brought back my passion for life and what I personally consider to be high-value hobbies that can change your life and give you the maximal return for your investment of time and money. Okay, so before we actually start picking high-value life changing hobbies, we kind of have to define what a hobby even is.
So, according to the Oxford Language Dictionary, a hobby is an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure. Okay, so now that we’ve defined a hobby, it’s kind of important to understand why you should even have or prioritize one because, to be honest, from the ages of like 14 to 20, I honestly hobbies were pretty much a waste of time and pointless, especially because I was just so busy with school and trying to get into a top college, so I felt like all of my time should be dedicated to studying. But, breaking news, it turns out that when you don’t have an outlet or activity with zero stakes and that is purely for fun, eventually you can start to get extremely burned out and resent your job, school, life, etc. because you basically have nothing that recharges your mental and physical health.
So, yeah, according to Harvard Health and a Nature Medicine study, people who have hobbies reported better health, more happiness, fewer symptoms of depression, and higher life satisfaction. And, if you’re not convinced yet that hobbies are worth your time, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, hobbies may even make you a better student or worker, as a study found that Nobel Prize winners were far more likely to have committed hobbies than the general public or other scientists.
Alrighty, so now that we know that hobbies have tons of benefits and are not actually useless, how do we pick which ones to do? Because lately, I keep seeing hobby videos popping up in my feed about high-value hobbies and attractive hobbies and there’s like dozens of lists of hobbies blah blah blah and it got me thinking, what on earth constitutes a high-value hobby and which hobbies then give the most return on investment, so to speak, for your time, money, and energy? Well, according to my research, hobbies can generally fall into four categories or benefits. Physical, mental, intellectual, social, and creative. Physical hobbies basically boost your physical fitness level and get you to move around and use your body.
Mental slash intellectual hobbies benefit your brain by helping it relax or de-stress or by improving your cognitive abilities, intelligence, knowledge, problem-solving skills, etc. Social hobbies help you interact with other people interested in the same things and gain new friends or a community, which is crucial in a time when we are becoming lonelier and more disconnected than ever before. And creative hobbies help you use your creativity and gain a skill to actually gift others your creations or an experience, like a performance. So what exactly then are high-value hobbies if they’re not just like any regular old hobby? Well, you see, some hobbies can actually give you numerous benefits and check off several categories and so my personal definition of a high-value hobby is a hobby that checks off at least three of four of the benefits of hobbies.
And by the way, I thought super hard and I could only think of one hobby, one diamond of the season, that checks off all four boxes and so I put it at the top of the list. And speaking of high value, before we get into the actual list of high-value hobbies, I wanted to mention one high value activity that isn’t exactly a hobby but can greatly add to your life in your future or your current career and that’s self-learning or self-educating yourself, especially through a platform like Simply Learn. Simply Learn is the world’s number one online learning platform with courses and programs designed and delivered by world-renowned universities, top corporations, and
leading industry bodies via live online classes featuring top industry practitioners, sought-after trainers, and global leaders.
Courses are available in subjects ranging from data science and business analytics to AI and machine learning and the master’s certificate that you get upon completing a course can help you stand out in an increasingly competitive job market and even help you land your dream job. For instance, my friend who’s an engineer is planning to take the Artificial Intelligence Engineer program and I’m personally planning to join the Digital Marketing Specialist program.
The AI program my friend’s going to do includes dozens of perks such as masterclasses by IBM experts, hackathons, while mine will include case studies from top brands, and over 35 digital marketing tools. The Artificial Intelligence Engineer program covers topics like ChatGPT, programming essentials, applied data science, and machine learning, etc. While the Digital Marketing Specialist program covers topics like building a website, search engine optimization, social media marketing, etc. So yeah, a huge thanks to Simply Learn for sponsoring this video. I highly recommend checking it out since it definitely is a high-value activity to do in your free
time as people who’ve earned Simply Learn certificates have gotten higher salaries and jobs in their areas of interest. Visit the link in the description below or in my pinned comment to try Simply Learn and take the first step towards advancing your career through online education. The next cohort is starting soon with limited seats available. Okay, so now let’s jump into my list of high-value hobbies. Obviously there are many more out there, but these are all hobbies that I’ve personally done and gained lots of benefits from.
So first up is cooking. So not only is cooking great for your mental health, it can help you relax and also forces your brain to maintain focus to not screw up the recipe, but it’s also creative as you can learn and try millions of recipes and share your creations with friends and family. And you can also make cooking a social activity by attending cooking classes or hosting group cooking sessions with your friends or hosting dinner parties featuring foods that you personally made.
Next up we have music or essentially playing an instrument or singing. I actually personally like singing for myself and every time I do, I just feel instantly calmer and happier. And when we make music, our brains actually release endorphins, chemicals that induce feelings of joy and pleasure and block the nerve cells that cause us to feel stress and pain.
Also, when we learn how to read music or memorize a song or piece, it improves our memory capacity and cognitive abilities. And of course, music is also very creative and if you’re skilled in an instrument or at singing, you can definitely create an experience for others by sharing your gift or your talent. And finally, if you take group lessons or join a band or a recreational orchestra or choir, music can also be very social.
So next up is horse riding, which I’ve only recently started doing, but honestly it is one of my favorite hobbies of all time. I’m still a complete beginner, so I’m only doing riding lessons right now with my little sister and now my mom has joined in, but one day hopefully we’ll all be able to do trail riding together. Horse riding is actually known to be therapeutic and relaxing and have great
cognitive benefits and it is also quite physical as you get more advanced. It is an olympic sport after all and it’s social since at the very least you’re socializing with a horse, but usually there are other people around at barns and you can do group classes or trail ride together.
So next we have pretty much any arts and crafts hobby. Crafts can be relaxing and great for mental health and focus, creative since you learn new styles or techniques to express yourself through your work, and again it can be social if you take group classes or join some kind of art club.
So now on to gardening. So first off, gardening and yard work can actually be a very physical activity. I would know after helping my mom dig holes for her plants and feeling sore the next day. Gardening is also great for mental health as it is calming and gets you to be outside and around plants and it’s also creative as designing a garden landscape or experimenting with different ways to improve soil fertility can be a form of creative expression and problem solving. And best of all, you create something from little seeds and then you can literally share the fruits of your labor with others.
Alright, second to last we have recreational sports ranging from ball sports like tennis and pickleball and golf to running or skiing. Obviously sports are physical and improve your physical fitness which is crucial for health and energy levels especially if you study
a lot or have a job where you’re sitting all day. Then of course there are the mental benefits of sports as sports not only improve mental health due to endorphins released but also help you reset your brain from anxious thoughts because a sports game forces your mind to be present in the moment and concentrate on what you’re doing. And of course sports can also be social as well as you can join a local running club or pickleball group or tennis league and meet new people that also love the same sport as you.
Alright, now drumroll please presenting the diamond of the season and highest value hobby that checks off all four boxes, dancing.
Dancing is definitely very physical, has great mental health benefits, and also improves your memory as you have to memorize and learn new moves and choreography. It’s definitely social if you join a group class or studio or dance in pairs and it’s inherently creative as you can use it to express your emotions or come up with new choreography and you can also share your skills in recreational group performances, in ballroom dancing, or at special events, or even at the club or parties with your friends.
Okay, so now that we’ve gone through the high value hobby list, I quickly want to say that just because I didn’t mention hobbies like journaling, learning a new language, reading, gaming, videography, photography, etc. does not mean that I think they’re worthless or bad hobbies considering that I’ve done all of them at some point even if a certain hobby doesn’t check off three of four of the criteria to be high value.
If you love it and you feel you gain benefits from it, that is hands down the most important thing to take into consideration when choosing and sticking to a hobby. But hopefully this list gave you an idea for which hobbies can give you the most bang for your buck with your limited time, money, and energy.
And if you ever feel like you just don’t have enough time for your hobbies, be sure to check out my time management tips video that I posted a few weeks ago. You can also screenshot this, but here are some ways I make more time for my hobbies even when I’m insanely busy. One’s leisure time for- I need my tea to clear my throat because I sound like a teenage boy.