The Best Retirement Hobbies
Should Be a Challenge

Retirement is the time to reward yourself.  You worked for decades doing whatever your supervisors told you to do and now you’re free.  Your time is your own.  It’s the time to reap the benefits of all of your hard work.  It’s a time for relaxation and hobbies but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a purpose in everything you do because when you pack your day with tasks that have no meaning, you end up thinking your life isn’t really worth living.  You need a sense of purpose to keep that terrible word from creeping into your vocabulary.  You can have hobbies, but the best retirement hobbies should be a challenge to you in some way and leave you with a sense of accomplishment.  Learning a skill as part of a new hobby is a great way to stay sharp and focused.  You’ll find your sense of enjoyment increases when you set goals for yourself even when it comes to hobbies.

A friend of ours moved to Florida into a golf community and thought she had created the retirement lifestyle of her dreams.  She had taken up golf a few years before she retired and enjoyed the game on weekends.  She embarked on her new way of life and, after about three months, felt like something was missing.  One of the things she realized was that she wasn’t getting any better at golf even though she was playing it more than ever.  She considered giving it up altogether but didn’t have anything to take its place.  She enjoyed all the social aspects of the game and being outside, especially during the winter months when all her northern friends were cooped up in their homes or shoveling snow.  She did something that was absolutely brilliant - she took golf lessons.  Even though she had thought she was pretty good, she became determined to get better.  After her first two lessons, she realized that there was a whole lot more to this little hobby than she thought.  Golf became something more than a way to pass the time.  The best retirement hobbies should be a challenge, and golf can be one of the best ways to get those competitive juices flowing and stimulate that spirit of determination that are the hallmarks of a good hobby.  Golf can be the sport for a lifetime because, when treated as a skill to be learned, there are enough challenges to keep you striving for improvement for the rest of your life.  Transforming the game of golf into a challenge completely re-energized our Florida friend.  She won her first community tournament last year and was ready to go onto bigger and better competitions

The best retirement hobbies should be a challenge that gets you to come back for more.

The best retirement hobbies should be a challenge to you in some way that makes you determined to improve your results in any activity you undertake.  If you know anyone who has taken up painting and stayed with it for any length of time, take a look at their most recent effort and compare it to their earlier work.  You’ll usually see some improvement because that’s the key ingredient for a hobby to hold your interest for any length of time.  Some skill needs to be developed to keep you going back for more.  That improvement may only be in the mind of the practitioner or hobbyist, but there has to be some sort of skill progression to hold your interest.  The best retirement hobbies should be a challenge and get you interested enough to come back again and again determined to get better at whatever activity you choose to undertake.  The most popular hobbies often appear to be a simple process.  In golf, all you need to do is to get that little white ball into the hole.  It’s certainly simple enough but once you start to take it seriously, you realize it can take a lifetime to master.

There are so many hobbies that fit that description and they don’t have to have physical skills involved in the activity.  Chess comes to mind instantly.  The rules are a little involved but are basically very straightforward.  Start down the path of becoming a player of this ancient game and you realize that you’re in for a lifetime of learning and there are hundreds of books that describe the strategies needed to dominate an opponent in a battle that takes place right before your eyes.  The best retirement hobbies should be a challenge and have the ability to hold your interest and create a desire to improve your performance.  Although writing isn’t often thought of as a hobby, it has become a very popular pastime for a lot of people, especially retirees.  It has all of the characteristics of a good hobby and can be one of the most challenging activities you will ever undertake.  While many hobbies can offer a chance to earn money if your skills are good enough, a true hobby is undertaken mostly for the pleasure that is derived from getting lost in a world of your own creation.

When you look at the most popular hobbies, the common denominator is that, once you become involved in a particular activity, you find out there are many things to learn, and you start to understand why some people are better than others at a particular undertaking.  I like to think of a hobby as your “job” of choice because it represents something you want to do no matter what else is going on in your world.  According to one survey, the most popular hobbies are baking, cooking, learning a language and writing.  That came as a surprise to me but it makes sense once you think about it.  The element of a challenge and sense of fulfillment are present in each and people can spend a lifetime challenging themselves to reach for perfection in their chosen pursuit.  The best retirement hobbies should be a challenge and chosen because of the satisfaction that they give you.  To paraphrase the great hobbyist Winston Churchill, the cultivation of a new hobby or interest is of the greatest importance.  The man who led Europe through World War II became a very accomplished painter in his spare time.  The question is, what will become your new hobby or interest?  The right activity can make all the difference in how much you enjoy your retirement.  Go ahead and challenge yourself.  It’s time to Enjoy Retired Life!

Thanks for visiting.  If you like what you see here, please tell your friends.  If you haven’t done so already, be sure you take The Self Discovery Challenge for Retirement! It’s designed to help you make the most of this wonderful time of your life.

If you think it might be fun to start your own website (it is!) please look here.

Tired of joint pain caused by inflammation from an intense round of golf?  There’s a company that has made wellness a reason for their existence. They have products that have helped me tremendously. I invite you to take a look here.

Please be aware that clicking on some of the suggestions made on this page may result in a commission being earned by the author.

Home - Retirement Hobbies