Ever thought about adopting new hobbies or habits so that you could do a total makeover of your life, so that you could finally turn the trajectory of your future around and be this completely different person whom you’ve always admired and longed to be?
Ever thought about bettering yourself, becoming more talented and skillful and smart? Your own role model?
‘Course you have.
How about instead of just daydreaming, we actually decide to become that person and thus take the necessary steps towards that road?
You can do it, of course you can. It’s only a matter of hardcore dedication for some six months or a year for a habit to permanently settle in and be an active and enriching party of your daily lifestyle.
Only six months of undistracted learning, focused goals and calculated practice.
A note: this is the eighth blog post, also kinda a detour from the blog series My Formula for Changing the World, and the philosophy behind compiling this is that if you’ve set out to change the world, maybe it’s necessary for you to bring a little change to your own identity too.
Table of Contents
How to Transform Your Identity With New Hobbies?
Sure, it takes only 21 days for you to form a habit. It takes a few more days for that habit to become a part of your identity. It takes slightly more days for you to start benefitting from the innumerable positive effects that habit brings in you, depending on what it is.
Just by leaving behind all the old, self-destructive, self-sabotaging habits and adopting new ones, you can really transform your life and change the way it was planned out earlier. These would be some soulful and enriching habits to start getting serious about yourself.
Let’s face it, all of us need this reminder every now and then to tell us that there are goals in life that we are meant to achieve, and there are dreams that we are supposed to fulfill for ourselves.
And the main reason we need this reminder is because very often in this huge, connected world we end up getting distracted. We end up straying from our path and ending up somewhere competently different. In those times, when we re lost in foreign land, new habits help.
Adopting creative hobbies and doing things for the aesthetic helps.
These are those practices, that you implement in your lives, either as habits or as hobbies. Doesn’t matter. They benefit either way.
#1 Start Using YouTube to Gain Knowledge
This Is actually the most obvious one of all.
In today’s technology powered world, it’s literally possible to learn any skill you want while being at home. You just have to have enough will and focus because we all have to admit that YouTube is the biggest distraction for the people.
Some make money off it, others watch fan videos and movie bloopers. Seriously, that’s part of the difference between winners and losers. Not that you are forbidden to watch enetertainmnet videos or anything, or that people watching entertainment are stupid and losers, that’s not the point. The point is that everything we could ever dream of doing or being, is just one click away.
it depends on you where you click, though.
Just go to YouTube, search some skill you’ve wanted to learn, or some skill that interests you.
Use YouTube to learn.
Use it to learn new skills when other people are busy doing things just for the sheer fun of it. Watch videos to get financial knowledge and be financially independent. Retire your parents. Or if your are someone’s parents, retire yourself.
It’s never too late to educate yourself. You should really use Google Digital Garage and learn digital marketing skills for free. You can listen to motivational speeches and TED talks.
You can watch gardening videos and furnish your garden or make one in the balcony of your apartment, or you can learn culinary skills. You can watch videos to learn to play any musical instrument, get new ideas for creativity, learn new things such as (of course) blogging, painting, art and craft, and so much more.
Seriously, all you need is a mobile and data facility.
#2 Martial arts.
Martial arts is awesome. Any type.
In a world where there’s so much crime and hate and war everywhere, you gotta learn how to protect yourself.
The best way to do that would be to join some training centre you would be taught these skills, or to learn them yourself. It’s not impossible to self-educate, though asking for help really helps.
It depends on your though, but any form of martial arts are really helpful to learn. They keep you tough and your body fit and healthy.
#3 Write/Journal
Do I even need to recount all the reasons why I write and journal? No.
Will I recount all the reasons why I write and journal? Yes.
Writing has given me something no one else could ever give. An escape from reality.
When I started writing when I was 12 years old, it was like a dam broke loose and suddenly writing was all I ever thought about.
I poured all my feelings into my characters because that way I didn’t have to speak to them about anyone and yet people will understand. But that was mainly because I wanted to be an author.
Even if you don’t want to be author, (which obviously many of you don’t) even in that case writing and journaling works.
It helps getting closer to yourself, gaining insight into your behaviour and feelings. If you’re dealing with mental health issues, journaling is a great way to start healing.
If you are dealing with self-awareness challenges, journaling is a great source of knowing yourself.
If you’re dealing with any, honestly, anything that’s bothering your peace of mind, try writing about it in a diary or a journal. When you start making a habit of it, You’ll feel better, guaranteed.
#4 Music/Songwriting
As I mentioned above, it’s easy to learn musical instruments and skills from YouTube without any extra cost.
The platform’s full of talented musicians waiting for an audience that can share their interests. If you haven’t already, then immediately (after reading this article), go to YouTube and select your favourite instrument. It’s that easy.
If, by chance, you want to learn guitar, then I’ve got something for you because I did the same and this is one channel that teaches amazing fingerstyle covers to some of the most popular songs. Let’sPlayGuitar. (They don’t post actively now but check out their older songs, they’re fab.)
#5 Study History, Microeconomics, Computers and Persuasion.
These are forms of knowledge that come real handy when you go out in the professional world to make a living.
History’s naturally interesting (NO MATTER WHAT PEOPLE SAY!). I remember studying microeconomics in my eleventh grade and becoming a true die-hard fan of the subject because of the way it anakyzed the economy. It’s really interesting.
Computers never get old. Today’s world is energized by the seamless powers of AI and it’s never going to get out of trend. It’s only fair to gain some technical knowledge about the things the world is stressing over.
Again, learn persuasion, not manipulation. There’s a difference.
Persuasion in my sense includes staying true to the facts while trying to get the customer or whoever it is that you’re trying to convince to look at your side of things. It’s like presenting the facts in such a way that people do actually like what you speak and do actually want to connect with you or what sevice or product you offer to them.
Manipulation, on the other hand, is something much more toxic. It’s better to just stick with persuasion for now.
#6 App and Web Designing
It was really hard to design a website, to optimize it, and spend hours every day to imaging the right order of content so that it could attract visitors and at the same time look pleasing to eye.
It would have been really helpful if I had just learnt coding before. Since I hadn’t, it made another story.
The thing is that these skills never get old. Even though in today’s world we’ve all got content management systems which design our websites and apps for us, it really feels great to have designed your own thing. Or maybe just to have learnt the necessary coding language so that you could solve all technical issues without no one else’s help.
This habit is nice. And it will definitely keep you busy.
#7 Digital marketing? Content marketing?
Both skills are almost similar and highly effective in today’s social-media-infected world, though there’s a teeny-meeny difference the two which it doesn’t hurt to speak about.
Digital marketing is direct and tries to convert the visitors into customers immediately by providing them relevant offers as such.
On the other hand, Content marketing is a little more subtle than digital marketing as it mainly focuses first on trying to educate the viewers and gain their attention through effective use of various social media factors such as content, mainly, and videos, info graphics, images etc.
Anything you do, any business you’re setting up, any profession you’re in, any company you’re working in, it all needs this one very necessary skill: the art to sell. You need to sell your ideas, your talent, you knowledge, you work.
So, if you got to learn these skills of marketing, along with the evergreen art of persuasion, you can set yourself up in any field of occupation that you like. There are books on digital marketing, but online videos also teach it to us (as in Google Digital Garage, which you need to check out.)
So, these were the 7 helpful hobbies/habits that are vital for doing a complete identity makeover.
Three New Hobbies
There’s a theory, that you must’ve heard of already, but since we’re talking about different hobbies here, it’s only fair to bring it up too.
You should have mainly 3 kinds of hobbies in your life (like, that’s not the maximum number) and these hobbies should be:
One to Keep You in Shape.
Like, martial arts, or working out every morning, or going for a jog in the park while listening to a self-help podcast. Anything works, really.
You can enroll in some sports or outdoor games.
One to Stay Creative.
Like writing/journaling. Reading, doing art and craft. Gardening. Cooking. Learning to play a musical instrument.
One to Make you Money.
The main things that are talked about in this section are your career activities, or those hobbies that might help you somehow in extending your work knowledge and becoming better at what you do. Keep in mind that this hobby is what you do to make money.
This is your career field, or maybe your passive income from a side-business. For instance, my writing habit started from a hobby, and now it’s what I plan to do my whole life.
So, it’s basically my hobby which will make my money. Aside from this, this includes other pastime activities that help greatly in earning extensive knowledge related to any subject or field you work in, like watching YouTube knowledgeable videos, learning skills of marketing, microeconomics and persuasion.
These will help you forever in whichever field you choose to go.
These three kinds of hobbies combined, will make your life more meaningful and your days more enriching.
Start Your New Hobbies Right Now!
So, how about starting right now (after reading this post) and go searching for three things that interest you and are within these three categories. (You can also find more than three things, of course, because there’s no rule against it or whatever, and life should be diverse. But one major hobby in each category works.)
So this was it, doing a complete lifestyle makeover by adopting seven enriching, helpful hobbies (potential habits) that will benefit you in the long run. Beware of the err of temptation, fellow humans! (I know, that sounds cringey.)
Anyway, comment below what are some of the most enriching and helpful hobbies according to you that have helped you greatly in doing an identity makeover that has attracted other people towards your aura.
What to Read Now?
After changing yourself, you’ll realise that what you really needed to do all along was to change the world. So now that you’ve treaded on this past of self-awareness and discovery and then reconstruction, you’ll want to do what you always intended to do. After changing yourself, you’ll change the world.
Start reading this blog post series and be an active participant in my own journey of bringing a change to the world. Get a free ebook that will contain your own formula for changing the world. My Formula for Changing The World.
Sometimes you’ll realise that in your quest of doing a complete identity makeover and adopting new hobbies, you’ll fail. You’ll see yourself being just short of the right amount of patience, resilience and willpower. Maybe this will affect you for the negative. Don’t worry.
If you struggle with perfectionism, it’s okay. It’s okay to realise that you don’t deserve this form of stress and it’s okay to ask for better things. How to Forgive Yourself For Not Being Perfect?
