Penny Pinching Passions: How to Keep Your Hobbies Alive While Working 9-5
- olivia
- Oct 8
- 3 min read
Stepping into a career can feel exciting: it's the start of a new era for yourself, both professionally and personally. But there may come a time when you notice that, lost in the hours spent pursuing your professional goals, lie hobbies and passions you once loved pursuing but no longer find the time for.
Your passion for pottery or painting falls to the wayside; you can’t remember the last time you sat down and read a book. Passions come in all shapes and sizes and deserve a time slot in our lives. The struggle is finding time for passions alongside the numerous responsibilities of professional and personal life.
Passions = Personal Growth
Pursuing passions will often lead you to personal growth. Challenging yourself with a project you didn’t think you could complete or pushing outside your boundaries by joining a writing workshop are both ways to have personal growth through taking the time to follow your passions.
Passions also allow for self-expression outside of what might be a more demanding or rigid work structure. You don’t have to be a professional to create, read, or write. Creating space to pursue something simply for the joy it will bring you can be cathartic and freeing.
Brokering a Balance
A major roadblock for many people who want to maintain personal passions alongside their careers is the fear of losing the balance between work and life that has already been established. Adding a new hobby or activity can break down someone’s entire life structure, and this fear can keep people from pursuing creative outlets.
Setting aside an hour or two a week to spend time pursuing a passion you love is a great place to start, whether you’re currently worried a 9-5 is going to take away your time for a current hobby or you’re thinking about trying to pursue a new or old hobby. You might think trying to squeeze in time for a hobby sporadically, or when you have the chance, will work, but more often than not, you’ll brush off the commitment or push it to another day.
Pick out a time and stick to it like your life depends on it. Soon, it’ll become second nature.
Money vs. Meaning
It’s no secret that a stable job provides a steady income and that hobbies don’t typically pull in piles of money, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy passions for personal fulfillment. In fact, for a lot of people, having the chance to enjoy the process of making something or completing a personal goal outside of work can hold a significant amount of meaning and pride.
And maybe the pottery you currently make isn’t sold, but that doesn’t mean that one day you can’t sell it if you want to.
The main reason to pursue a passion is to give yourself moments that feed the soul—like creating art, or writing the novel you’ve always dreamed about, or even flipping a secondhand dresser. Your “why” of pursuing a hobby or passion should ideally be rooted in your goals and adding to your enjoyment of life, not taking away from it.
Conclusion
The next time you remember a hobby you used to love, take the time to build it into your everyday life. Look for inspiration in the small moments and treat time that’s for chasing passions like the most important meeting in the world. Read the book that’s been collecting dust on your shelf, join that yoga club, open yourself up to new passions, or bring old ones back into your life. It’s never too late to start—or start again.
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Written by Olivia Mettler