Just writing that title gave me pre-anxiety about what people will think, but Nikki, doesn’t that go against everything you teach? Actually…it doesn’t. Let me explain.
The mantra I’ve held, “do what you love”, has been twisted into something that people think means “turn your hobby into your business”. That’s not true. “Finding your passion” is another common one that people misconstrue. Passions and hobbies are beautiful things. They keep us sane. They keep us centered. For most people they are an escape, of sorts, from the daily grind of doing things they don’t love–everyday responsibilities, obligations, earning a living at a job they may or may not enjoy, etc. Some people have been so busy living their lives for everyone else, that they’ve realized they don’t have any hobbies at all (unless, maybe, you count watching Netflix), but that’s a blog post for another time.
Hobbies and passions play such a crucial role in our creative well-being, our flow state and our ability to push pause for a little while to be present with ourselves. They have no further purpose than bringing pleasure. In our modern life, with productivity pushed to a max, business and commerce and capitalism at the core of everything we do, it can feel so wrong to do things simply because we feel like it. Our desire for expression is something we don’t have room for in our busy lives, yet it’s something I find most people secretly crave.
The idea of doing something that doesn’t yield any outcome is so foreign and strange to us. Not everything needs to be monetised. Not everything needs to have a logical reason behind it.
“What’s the point?” is a common question we ask ourselves when we don’t see the benefit of a tangible or financial end result. The point of a hobby is exactly that–to not have a reason for doing it, other than the fact that it brings you joy. What an alien concept that is for so many people in our modern world, and how sad that is.
In Western society, it has been ingrained into us through our conditioning that we only get to do fun things if we deserve it. It’s as if we have to earn the right to feel joy. To me, that is the strange concept, not the other way around.
Spiritually speaking, joy is our birthright and should be our natural state as human beings. We attract all of our desires from a place of joy and ease and flow, so why not aim to be there as much as possible.
Being in a state of play, flow, and creativity is art. Gardening, painting, dancing, cycling, meditating, appreciating music– the list could go on; they’re all forms of art. As humans, we need that. We need the disconnect from our stressful lives now more than ever to be with ourselves doing something that brings us joy and keeps us in the moment.
Doing things we love can also happen in business, but not in the same way a hobby does. For more thoughts on that topic (and the way I do recommend turning something you love into a business) have a look at this article.
We achieve flow when doing something we love–something that gives us joy and has no further purpose. When the sole purpose and goal is to just enjoy something, it’s only then when we let go of expectation, let go of perfection, let go of achieving any end result. We do that enough in our businesses, in our jobs, in our thoughts. Our human brains are constantly calculating, making decisions and subconsciously making choices based on those calculations from the moment we wake up to the moment we fall asleep.
Hobbies allow us to just be. That’s why I say you shouldn’t make your hobbies into a business. Don’t steal your own joy. Enjoy the feeling it brings to not have to do anything more than just be and allow your creativity to unfold in a state of presence and flow. Because once you begin to allow that, you slowly and subtly begin to change your natural state. You begin to appreciate presence. You begin to allow joy into your life–not because you deserve it, but because it’s your divine right.
Don’t make your hobby into a business. Appreciate the things you love doing simply for the sake of enjoyment.
