The days of a person having one job or career for their entire working life are long over. Even the days of multiple jobs or careers in sequence are past us. We are living in the age of the portfolio career and the side hustle, where people pursue multiple things at the same time.
In this world, every hobby or interest becomes an opportunity to monetize.
Enjoy photography? Start to advertise yourself as a photographer. Have a talent for knitting? Start selling your creations. Love to bake? Put up an Instagram and take orders.
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with monetizing something you love to do. If you love to do something and there’s a market for it, why not take advantage of that market to make some extra money?
Here are 3 reasons why it’s important to have creative hobbies that you don’t monetize.
(1) It’s important to have something you enjoy doing just for pleasure.
You need some hobbies that nurture your creative health and your spirit; the freedom to experiment, to answer only to yourself. You need places where you can create solely for the sake of creating and not for the outcome of monetizing what you create.
This will help you stave off burnout. Your mind also needs break from thinking about how to position, package, price, and promote everything you create.
i have a friend who knits. She would never dream of selling her creations — her pleasure is in the act of knitting and in wearing what she creates, or in giving it as gifts.
(2) It helps to create more meaningful connections.
My favorite question to ask when I meet someone new is “what do you do *for fun?*”
It’s an unexpected twist on the standard boring networking question, and it always gets people talking. Even people who love what they do don’t love to talk about it all the time.
When everything you do is a business, every conversation can feel like a pitch to promote your goods and services — both to you and to the people you’re talking to. This energy can interfere with developing real connection in relationships.
Nobody wants to talk to the person who is always promoting their offerings. And you don’t really want to be that person.
It feels good to have conversations without the pressure of trying to sell your work.
(3) It will fuel your creative efforts in your business.
Many creators think of hobby creating — what author Todd Henry calls “Unnecessary Creating” — as a waste of time and a missed opportunity.
Creative hobbies are a safe space to experiment and play. They can give you ideas that you can bring into your work.
Rather than being a waste of time, this type of creating can actually actually help you be more creative and productive in the work you do for money.
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