How Your Hobbies Can Boost Your Career!
All Work? More Play!
What comes to your mind when you think of the word “hobby”?
It carries a plethora of contexts and meanings – by definition, it’s an activity that’s carried out during one’s free time for fun and pleasure. For most people, it’s an outlet that helps them relax and unwind, a passion that brings joy and fulfilment.
In the context of work, it’s a way of taking a break from the stresses of the daily grind. But did you also know that having a hobby can actually provide a boost to your career?
According to experts, having a hobby can help you perform better at work: benefits include increasing creativity, improving problem-solving skills and helping you hone new skills, all of which can contribute to success in your chosen career.
Bring Into Play
Here’s how having hobbies can help you climb to greater heights in the workplace:
- Enhances Creativity
Whether you like baking, painting or knitting, creative hobbies stimulate your imagination and boost innovation. This is handy for when you need to come up with new ideas or think of solutions to issues that arise at work.
- Improves Communication
Love to go hiking with your friends, or do you prefer volunteering at a local library by reading to children? Or perhaps you like moonlighting as an improv comedian over the weekend? Either way, activities like these involve building your social skills. In turn, this can translate to effective communication skills, which are needed in fast-paced working environments.
- Bolsters Logic
If you’re an avid reader, a collector, or a lover of games in all forms – puzzle, strategy, tabletop or video – then you’re developing your logic and critical-thinking skills in the process. This makes for a great asset in the workplace, especially when it comes to problem-solving, analysing data or learning new skills.
- Boosts Networking and Confidence
Cooking classes, golfing and volunteering are just a few examples of hobbies that allow you to create meaningful connections with other people. It can also give you a sense of accomplishment, thus boosting your confidence levels. By engaging in outlets like these, you will be able to establish professional relationships, network with industry colleagues and carry yourself at work with aplomb.
- Builds Up Time Management Skills
Gardening, learning a musical instrument or working on cosplay commissions involve good time management skills. In turn, hobbies like these can help you develop a sense of discipline and organisation. These are all crucial in helping you prioritise and complete tasks in a timely manner, produce better work and improve your decision-making abilities.
- Develops Leadership Abilities
Turn your passion for tutoring, team sports and amateur theatre-making into leadership opportunities at work. By exercising your leadership and decision-making skills while practising your hobbies, you will be able to do the same in the workplace, which can put you on the path to future promotions.
- Refreshes Your Health
Engaging in hobbies from yoga, dancing and surfing to writing, blogging and working on DIY projects can provide a much-needed break from the status quo, allowing you to relax and recharge. As a result, it can improve your overall physical and mental health, thus leading to better concentration, less fatigue, higher motivation and increased overall job satisfaction.
Make Hobbies Work For You!
There’s no doubt that having hobbies can be a game-changer in your career trajectory. By investing time, patience and energy into your favourite pastimes, you will see improvements in various aspects of your professional life in no time. Good luck, and happy hobbying!