I have a problem that every time i want to start new hobby, i cant work on it for long enough time to develop it into a habit. I quit the hobby i started even less than one month after starting it, even if i am excited and interested in working on it for a long time.
Since i dont know if i really have an adhd, because psychitriastists i went to say that i dont have adhd, despite i have common symptoms like lack of motivation, problems with learning and work, and problem with working on hobbies for a long time, i need to somehow find a way to work on a single hobby for a long time, without meds.
I have learned to embrace it. My hobbies and motivation come in waves. When I am excited about something I do as much as I can and stop feeling guilty about not persuing other hobbies at the moment - I know their time will come.
I am diagnosed if that’s important.
+1, embrace it!
Be conscious of it too (so be wary of starting, for example, a really expensive hobby), but I think the important part is not feeling any shame for a wave of passion.
Keep a rotating carousel of hobbies. Be frugal in your spend when getting into a new hobby. Really feel the pain of not spending before committing. I’ve started and abandoned so many projects. I come back to them on occasion and prod them along another few steps until I hit another brain blocker and then rotate to another shiny. The trick is to just go with the flow. You don’t owe the universe your productivity. Do things to enjoy them. If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, just don’t do it.
When i start a new hobby, it is enjoyable by me. For me this is a problem, because after some time of working on it, it becomes not enjoyable. I dont know how to make a hobby that i want to work enjoyable for a long time, or find an interesting thing, that by itself is enjoyable for a long time.
I can only speak for my own experience, but here’s what I’ve been doing.
I have had an interest in the violin since I was in middle school. Back then my parents couldn’t afford to get me one, much less lessons. I tried twice as a adult to pick it up on my own (renting an instrument and watching videos on YouTube) but both times I couldn’t stick with it and ended up returning the instrument. I eventually bought one secondhand and told myself I’d learn at some point. But after the times with the rental I couldn’t bring myself to try. I knew how bad I’d been at it before. Then, about 2.5 years ago, I got a raise at work and decided I’d try again, paying for lessons this time. My instructor and I worked out a system for me. I never ever touch the violin when I don’t want to. I’m still not good at playing it! But I still LOVE playing it when I do. Over the last two years I learned that it was never the fact that I sucked that tore me away from the violin. It was that I had framed it as a task I HAD to do to get better. And I would grow to hate picking it up and so eventually just give up. Now though, I practice just about every day that I’m home for, but if I look at it and feel dread, I just don’t. I circle back a few hours later and try again. Usually it’s passed, sometime not. I don’t question it any more.
Honestly I’m at the point now where I could probably stop frequent lessons and still grow and learn from YouTube and the occasional one off lesson, but I like the motivation my teacher gives me. I still have an insane amount of way to go to be what I’d call good at playing, but it’s still fun!
Over the last couple years I’ve been trying this with all my interests. I sew now! I’m getting marginally better with every dumb project. When I look at it and I feel dread (real dread, not indifference) then I pass it over for the hour, or day. If I’m indifferent, I push myself to do 3 minutes of something. 3 minutes is a good start. No timer though. Just not the time on my phone and start. I’ve never even looked at my phone within those 3 minutes. And usually after getting started I am invested in continuing.
The hard part about all this is that is requires you to be disciplined and honest with yourself. Some days you’ll fail at that (I certainly do!) but it does get easier over the long term (although you’ll fall off after months of solid progress and have to get back to it after, and that will suck). Most people don’t take the time to really think about their own emotional state and this requires (not recommends, REQUIRES) you to do that.
Good luck. You’re going to have good days and bad days, but as long as you keep working, your skills (for your hobby and for your understanding of yourself) will grow and grow! I hate to prove all those therapists out there right, but it actually is kinda rewarding.
There is no secret sauce here. Either you choose to persevere against the un-enjoyable-ness, or you don’t. If this bothers you this much, try to find strategies for coping such as: lowering your expectations (perfection brings tedium and tedium is the enjoyment killer), shrinking your scope (less work, less chance of drowning in the enormity of the project), recommit to goals with rigor (sometimes you just gotta suck it up even if it isn’t enjoyable and you want that reward/payoff).
Either you choose to persevere against the un-enjoyable-ness, or you don’t.
I find that often my hobbies don’t make me feel “I look forward to doing this” before I start, or even “I am enjoying doing this” once I do. But they do make me feel “I’m happy that I did this” after I’ve made some progress.
(This is a very hard lesson for me to truly internalize.)
It is also totally legit to do hobby things out of anger which is the obverse side of the “I’m happy that I did this” coin. Like, “this bothers me so much that I need to do this”. And then it is relief after it is done. Perhaps the less contentment-able (or low tolerance for settling) types of people can harness this power better.
Why do you NEED to work on a single hobby for a long time? Once you have to force it, it’s not a hobby anymore, it’s work.
Feel free to rotate hobbies. If you start to get sick of one, dig out another one you haven’t touched for a while.
I want to have a single hobby, like normal people do. Normal people can just find any thing that interests them, get a hobby of it, and work on it for as long as they want. For me, this is problem, because for me, every time i need to find new thing to get hobby of it. If i will not find that thing in time, i will lose interest to current hobby, quicker than find interest for new hobby.
Don’t compare yourself to others, what works for them doesn’t necesserily works for you. Do what you enjoy, try and spend as little as you can so you don’t have to worry about abandoning them and regret, and try and not hoard hobbies: if you buy a guitar but didn’t play it for 3 years, maybe it’s time to sell if and recover some money, if you know you don’t care about it. Just try and not feel too bad about it. Hobbies are and should be to enjoy passing times only.
Sometimes you start a hobby project and it goes long, but you want the end result
Hoarding hobbies is the hobby.
I agree with the others to have a bunch of hobbies to pick from. For the record I have been on stims daily, but now I use a non-stim with an occasional boost from a mild stim.
- I like gaming because there is always a new game to try.
- I like sewing because I often need to repair something and occasionally I think of something that I can’t buy in a store.
- I like gardening because I like cooking, and it’s fun to have fresh ingredients that I grew myself.
- Some people like learning an instrument because there are always new songs and styles to try
Ultimately, what my ADHD brain craves is novelty, and I can only really get that from a variety in my activities.
It’s hard! And tbh, when I do manage to stick at a hobby for a longer time it often starts to horrify me. Like, why I have I spent so long doing this thing that doesn’t matter?
But tips that help me:
Keeping stimulated about it, watching YouTube about it, reading about it. It’s easy to do when I’m excited about it, and that way I’m constantly being bombarded with reminders that I care.
Having friends or people to join in with. If I have to go to something or finish something, having another person to keep me on track and from just moving on to something else is great
Setting manageable goals - I often go back and forth from “I want this to be my whole life” and “why am I’m wasting my life on this”. Aiming for a specific goal means there’s a point that I can choose to stop or set a further goal, rather than just a vague endless pressure to do the hobby.
But it really depends on what it is, specific advice for crafting, sport, games or whatever will be different. What do you want to do? And what about it excites you?
For me its much easier to work on something when i do it together with someone. For me this is a problem, because i dont have even a single friend, and i dont know any adhd specific ways form a friendship as adult. My parents and psychiatrist just gave me a rough advice, and not the exact steps that i need to follow to form a friendhip.
Difficultly with visualising the steps to complete a process is an ADHD symptom.
Finding it easier to stay on-task with someone else in the room is called ‘body-doubling’ and is an adhd coping strategy.
If your therapist hasn’t sent you for a ~4 hour dedicated assessment, they can’t say you do or do not have adhd.
My therapist was like; “Maybe adhd, but not autism.” I 100% have both.
So get a second opinion.Hobbies are great ways to find the friends! If it’s a hobby that requires you to buy stuff, just start asking the staff at the store for recommendations for groups that you might be able to join. Check Facebook or Twitter for people (in your area or just in general) that are already in said hobby. You stand to make friends AND get better at said hobby. Win win.
I get it. When you’re a kid, friends come from being locked up in the same building all day. As an adult the options are work or community (religious house, community center, or hobby specific spaces). It is harder because you only spend a similar amount of time as you did at school in one of those and it’s the least fun one. But it can be done! It just takes time. I guess that advice goes for hobbies and for friendships.
I agree with everyone else. Having a bunch of different hobbies that I can bounce between keeps things fresh and exciting. They can be related though. For example, I enjoy writing, I also enjoy reading. And I love sci-fi and fantasy in television, movies, and video games as well. And I play TTRPGs in various genres. Oftentimes, because of how related a lot of my hobbies are, by the time I start losing interest in one specific thing, I’ve already been inspired in something adjacent. So overall, it’s like one big hobby that I slowly work theough
Yeah I find if I ever try to push myself to keep doing something my brain has pivoted away from it basically just ensures I won’t ever want to do it again because it forms bad boring memories of it lol
