The Ingredients for Finding a Hobby You Love
Distilling a past passion into reproducible ingredients
When I was a kid, I loved basketball. I loved everything about it. I would draw basketball hoops on scratch paper when the teacher was speaking of trivial things and I was supposed to be paying attention. I would daydream about the sweet satisfaction of hearing that net swish after knocking down a jump shot. All my decisions were based on if I could play basketball that day. I would ask myself questions like, “What’s the weather like, will it affect my shot later?” or “Oh, the flowers are blooming, that’ll be nice scenery as I play today”. The level of excitement I got from seeing a shopping cart, left alone and full of basketballs, knowing I was seconds away from my P.E. teacher saying, “Today is a free day, go grab a ball and play”, is rivaled only by the uncontrollable anticipation of the arrival of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.
I played basketball at least 30 minutes a day every day without fail, rain or shine, for about five years. I would even wear gloves in the middle of winter to play. I remember running home after getting off the bus from school, dropping my bookbag, and sprinting outside to play, often before the bus left my neighborhood. I lived and breathed basketball, that’s all I cared about and that’s all I wanted to do.
I've never had that kind of depth or nourishing joy and satisfaction from any activity since.
While I can still play basketball for hours and completely lose track of time, I want to know what else gives me that timeless vitality.
I could always take the easy way out and say: “My Dad raised me on basketball from an early age. After all, my name is Jordan for a reason. I was shooting at age 3, so I was conditioned from the start to love it.” Yeah…maybe that’s it. I know! I’ll get some other family with a fishing hobby to adopt me and maybe they can condition me to love that too. Problem solved.
Ah, if only it were that simple.
I’ve tried many things. I’ve played almost every sport under the sun. I’ve played the piano, taken Taekwondo, worked out with personal trainers to try my hand at weight lifting, taken ballroom dancing lessons, and joined spin classes. I even accidently got two masters degrees, which I now realize was in some unconscious pursuit of this very topic.
But none of these stuck. Not like basketball.
Sure, I ‘did’ all those other activities - but I didn’t really do them. I’d do them just long enough to tease myself with the potential that I could be good, and then stop. For years, I’ve been trying to create habits and systems that give me the same deep joy that I once got from basketball, but I’ve never succeeded.
Maybe the real question is:
Why did I love basketball in the first place and how can I apply that to something new?
I don’t have any definitive answers here. If I did, I'd already be fulfilled enough to not ask myself existential questions on the internet; but I hope by teasing this out I can find aliveness and passion from a craft again, and maybe you can too.
I reverse engineered my love of basketball in an attempt to replicate the structure for future activities. Here are the ingredients of my passion and how to apply it to an activity of your choice:
1. Pick a craft, hobby, sport, or skill
There is no wrong answer, pick something that intrigues or resonates with you. I never had to think about whether I liked basketball or not, I was magnetically drawn to it. I was entranced by it from the start. I loved the speed of it, the crisp passes, and the satisfying way a possession comes to an end with a made basket. I was wowed by the athleticism, the competition, and the way the teams are built and come together. Pick something you feel drawn to that you don’t have to think about and makes you excited. If you don’t feel excited by something up front, cast a wide net, try out many different things and see what feels right.
2. Set aside dedicated time to play
This is important for three reasons:
It guarantees you have time to do what you’re interested in
It guarantees that you will take action
It maintains a sense of lightness and fun at all times
‘Play’ is the key word. I never once had to force myself to play basketball even when I wasn’t good, but I always made a chunk of time to play every day. The key is to set aside time committed to your activity of choice. Be strict about showing up consistently each day, but within your play time don’t worry about being strict on yourself. Just as a loving parent would ensure that proper resources are allocated to a child, make sure you have enough time to do your activity each day. Then, within that container of time let your inner child run free. Bring on the fun.
3. Challenge yourself occasionally during play
Because it’s just playing, the outcome doesn’t matter. I eventually learned how to dribble under my legs, spin, and dribble behind my back just by playing around in my driveway. The challenge and struggle of pushing yourself is what gives a sense of progress and meaning to the activity. Don’t worry if you can’t figure something out at the moment, keep trying and showing up. Consistency and viewing things through the lens of ‘fun’ can conquer any sense of struggle over time.
4. Surround yourself with an environment that makes it easy
Create an immersive environment for yourself. Find friends or a community that shares your interest. Find videos, demos, or other representations to provide guidance as you do the activity. Seek out inspiration so you always know what’s possible at the highest level of that activity.
When people are talking about basketball, they jokingly say ‘ball is life’, but it might as well have been a second life or full time job for me.
I’d watch SportsCenter highlights of NBA games and read basketball news in the newspaper for two hours before school. At school, almost all my friends played basketball and when we weren’t playing it in P.E., we’d talk about it incessantly. After school, I’d play between 30 minutes and two hours every day. In the late afternoon, I’d play basketball video games and watch highlights on ESPN. My night cap was to watch games while playing on a NERF hoop.
The environment around me was extremely conducive to my passion. It was Cupid’s arrow to my love of basketball.
All that time I spent watching SportsCenter highlights gave me the Kobe Bryants and Steve Nashs of the world to model myself off of. I wasn’t trying to be world class like them, but it gave me exposure to their arsenal, and what the spectrum of what’s possible looked like.
If you’re playing an instrument, learn from a band you admire or your favorite musician. If it’s programming, find someone good and let yourself be inspired by them.
Make friends, find a coach or seek out a mentor, or enroll in a course or program. I used to play basketball in a church league. My coach noticed I had some initial skills and dedication, and invited me to extra workouts and pickup games on the weekends to get even better. I also signed up for camps in the summers to learn new moves. Learn from those around you.
5. If you stick with it for a long while, try to master it
Unsurprisingly, one of the other reasons I enjoyed basketball so much was that I was good at it. Not good in a competitive sense, but I was good enough to know what being good feels like, and I could impress my own flavor and nuance into how I played. There is deep satisfaction in knowing you're good, having the winds of flow at your back, not having to think about the task at hand because the baseline competence is already there, while having enough of a skill set to push into the depths of the craft and learn the most advanced moves. Try to master what you’re doing, not for any reason other than to see how far you can go.
All of this waxing and waning about finding a passion or hobby you love is nice and fun, but it can also be a long and arduous journey. I remember not loving basketball. I remember not being able to dribble, having to look at the ball the entire time, consciously scripting my next move, and not even having the strength to make it to the rim, let alone to actually score. I knew I liked basketball enough to keep playing, but I didn't always love basketball initially. It was fun, but frustrating at times. But I kept at it. Transcending the frustrations through consistency, viewing things through a lens of ‘fun’, and having a supportive environment around me kept me going for years.
I know it can be hard to do this in practice. The challenge for me of course is to take my own advice. I have two main interests right now that are leading candidates to find the feeling basketball once gave me: writing and guitar. I’ve written about these before and the beauty of it is, because I’m sharing what I’m doing in public, I feel more inclined to stick with them and share updates with you here and on Twitter.
I’m fortunate to have experienced an activity in basketball that provided me with such a deep sense of aliveness and satisfaction. It’s proven incredibly difficult for me to find this same level of joy again in another activity, but I know it’s possible because I’ve felt it before.
The feeling basketball gave me is the same as the open road to a wanderer or an open field to a wild horse. I want to be able to enjoy an activity again without having to think, for the sake of it, and in my heart, knowing that to play for a moment is to play forever.
I hope I can recapture this feeling and I hope you get to experience it too.
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Great Jordan! I'm writing about my music This week on Twitter! Love this so much.
This is so awesome! It’s cool to learn more about your love of basketball (I’m always wondering now how tall you are) and I like the tips for finding that level of passion for something. I need to lean into the “play” more of things, I’d love a hobby that is just something I enjoy doing purely for the sake of it.