How To Get A Retirement Hobby? | 10 Helpful Tips

You want to spend your time in retirement doing the things you love. Therefore it’s important to find a hobby that you enjoy, and that makes you feel fulfilled at the end of the day. In this article, I will give in-depth information on how to get a retirement hobby that’s the right fit for you.

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1) Reclaim Your Childhood Hobby

To find a retirement hobby, you don’t always need to dig deep or look far away. One of the best places to start your quest for a retirement hobby is to take it back to your childhood. Because as a child, you were wild and free, and you only did things you really loved doing. There’s a good chance you still love the same hobbies as when you were in your childhood.

So what are things you enjoyed doing as a kid? And what are the hobbies that you might enjoy now? Maybe you loved playing outdoors and making huts, collecting coins or records, riding your bike, playing basketball, football, soccer, or other sporting games. Or you loved getting creative with arts and crafts. These are things you can easily pick up again as an adult.

It doesn’t mean you have to go back and do precisely the same hobbies. But use the information about your childhood hobbies and ask yourself why you enjoyed them so much? There are common factors you can search for: being outdoors, being physically or mentally active, learning new skills, or getting creative.

If you find that common factor, you’re a lot closer to find a hobby you love. And then it is a lot easier to search for hobbies that have the same common factors. Try it out and see if it helps you!

For example, if you loved playing basketball, you can look for adult or senior basketball groups within your area. Or you can consider becoming a coach of a basketball team. Or if you loved to be outdoors, gardening or landscaping can be a great retirement hobby for you.

If you need some inspiration for ideas, I recommend reading my article, The 30 Best Retirement Hobbies.

2) Transform What You Enjoy Into A Hobby

If you didn’t have a specific childhood hobby or don’t know what your retirement hobby can be, you can start by looking for things that you already enjoy, and transform that into a hobby. What do you do for fun? What did you love about your job? What makes you forget about time?

For example, if you love to walk your dog, you can consider becoming a dog trainer, dog walker (via Wag), or becoming a volunteer at a dog rescue organization.

If you love to socialize and be part of a group, you can look for hobbies that involve being social. You can become part of a club via Meetup.

Or you can consider doing volunteer work to help others or getting a parttime retirement job where you have to interact with a lot of other people. I’ll tell you later more about why volunteering and social interactions are great ways to find a new hobby in retirement.

If you love to watch sports, consider being part of a sports team as a coach. Or if you love to watch movies on Netflix, consider taking a film class or acting class. Did you know that you can easily follow online classes via Masterclass? For example, if you want to take an acting class, there’s a Masterclass where Samual L. Jackson teaches acting!

So what are things you enjoy? I just gave you some easy examples. It’s actually a simple question, but sometimes hard to answer. And therefore I’ve listed a couple of questions you can ask yourself that makes it easier to learn more about what you really enjoy:

What activity is a stress reliever for you?
How would you describe your perfect day?
What excites you?
What is a topic you can read 500 books about?
What’s the thing you never get bored of?
What is something you love to talk about?
What gives you satisfaction, joy, and happiness?

I recommend you to find a spot where you can relax, go there, and write down the answers to these questions on a paper or your phone. Don’t think about it too much. Most answers just pop up in your mind.

When you still find it difficult, don’t be too hard on yourself, just let it be and accept it. Many people struggle to learn what they really like. To make it easier, you can ask your loved ones, like your spouse or friends, and see what they answer about you. Maybe they come up with new insights you didn’t saw yourself.

3) Get Inspiration To See What Sparkles

Another way to find something you will enjoy is to get inspiration and see what makes you sparkle. And that often means taking a few extra steps to get inspired to find a potential retirement hobby.

You can visit a museum, and get inspired to start painting and creating arts yourself. Or go to a concert, and want to learn how to play an instrument. You can also go into a bookstore and see what books you would like to read or topics you want to know more about. Even a conversation with a stranger or a friend can sparkle an interest you can dive into.

You have to be willing to be open-minded for whatever inspires you and gets you excited. Just like you were as in your childhood. Like we already discussed, go back to your inner-child. It can lead to old hobbies you dust off or new hobbies you didn’t even know existed yet.

Another way to get inspiration is to learn more about people that inspire you. Maybe there’s an author, artist, or family member that inspires you. You can ask yourself the question: why do they inspire me?

Is it something they do, what they say, how they live. Dig in a little deeper and learn why it is you get inspired by those people. And see if you can transform that inspiration and interest into a retirement hobby.

Also, a great way to get inspiration is to go on Pinterest. If you already have an account, you can directly see what interests you have, and you can consider transforming one of those interests into a hobby. Or, if you don’t have an account, you can create one. And get inspired by Do It Yourself projects, travel, arts, and crafts to all sorts of different hobbies people around the world have.

4) Find Your Passion

The best way to find out what you love to do is to find out what you’ve always wanted to do. Is there are a time where you completed the sentence: I’ve always wanted to do…

If so, now is the time to do it. And don’t let fear stop you from pursuing a dream. Go for it!

Knowing what you want to do, and staying true to yourself is all about knowing your passion. If you know the things you are passionate about, you will find it much easier to answer a question like I stated above.

Passion brings more meaning, happiness, and energy in your life. To find your passion, you must get to learn more about yourself, and for many people, that can be a scary and challenging process.

We are so used to live in a specific pattern, live by the rules of society, which we often refer to as a rat race. That we actually don’t have enough time to spend on the things we’re passionate about. And once you’re retired and finally have more time, we often forgot about our interests.

Finding your passion is learning about that thing that makes you sparkle we talked about earlier. A passion is something different than finding your purpose. People often confuse these terms with each other.

Your purpose is a goal, something you want to accomplish. A passion is something you’re enthusiastic about. For example, your purpose can be to help the less fortunate in your community by volunteering. Your passion can be gardening—two totally different things.

You can find out helpful tips in my article How To Find Your Passion In Retirement?

5) Start Volunteering

You might think, how can volunteering help with finding a retirement hobby? Well, it’s actually quite simple.

When you volunteer, you often meet a lot of different people with whom you interact. You can learn from their interests, get inspired by what they’re doing, and might find new things you can get passionate about, which can later result in a hobby.

Also, as a volunteer, you’re busy with all kinds of tasks. Especially when you’re helping out in the local community. This helps you to learn more about the things you might be interested in. Tasks that you love doing, and seem to go without any effort, might be exciting as a hobby too.

I wouldn’t say that volunteering itself is a hobby. Volunteering is more about helping others and helping out in your community. It is, however, a great activity to do in retirement. Volunteering gives you fulfillment, which leads to happiness.

Volunteering is a great way to stay busy in retirement, read more in my article Why Do Retirees Volunteer?

6) Take An Assessment To Learn More About Yourself

Getting a hobby in retirement means that you need to look for something you love to do. And therefore you need to know yourself quite well to find the right fit. Because a hobby that I love to do is maybe something you don’t like to do and vice versa.

So, to get you closer to a fun retirement hobby, you can take an assessment to learn more about yourself. Maybe the results are a confirmation of what you’ll already know, or perhaps it gives you a new perspective.

Here are some personality tests you can do;

7) Keep Learning and Self Developing

A lot of people have a self-development hobby. This can be health-related like exercising and meditating or learning a new skill like a foreign language or musical instrument.

Question yourself about what you would like to learn or what you want to change about yourself. Perhaps you would like to be more physically active and become more healthy in that area. You can create a retirement hobby to achieve that goal. For example: become a member of a jogging club, set a challenging goal to run a marathon, or join a yoga or fitness class.

Many people start with meditating as a hobby. Meditating is a great activity to find more rest and get a clearer mind. It can also help transform negative thoughts into positive ones. You can start meditating alone through apps like Headspace or apply for meditation groups or lessons nearby you.

Perhaps, you like to learn a new skill or develop a talent of yours you didn’t have time for in the past. You can apply for classes or buy books or get info online through TEDtalks, YouTube, Pinterest, or Podcasts. There are so many tutorials about many different subjects and online information available for free to teach you anything you want in retirement.

And if you don’t know what you want to change about yourself, you can ask yourself: “What is true about me today that would make my 10-year-old self cry?” This means to ask yourself: what are the things you stopped doing as you were getting older? The chance is you’ll find a new sense of purpose in pursuing the things you stopped doing and create a new hobby for in retirement by pursuing it again.

My article, How To Get Fulfillment In Retirement: 16 Tips, can help you with this process.

Apply For Online Masterclasses In Retirement

A great way to explore a new hobby, passion, or class in retirement is by getting yourself an All-Acces Pass to Masterclass. It’s a great way to have something fun to do in retirement and learn new skills from the best teachers in the world. From a cooking Masterclass by Gordon Ramsey, Tennis Masterclass by Serena Williams, or a writing Masterclass taught by Dan Brown, etc. MasterClass offers a wide variety of online masterclasses taught by the best in the world. Check out all the masterclasses available here.

8) Become A Coach

We’re always talking about how we can learn more about ourselves and the things we’re passionate about to transform that into a hobby. However, many people also love to help others with the process.

Becoming a coach is perfect. If you love to interact with people and help them find out what they want, find their hobbies, or even help with career advice.

You can start coaching other people as a hobby, and if you grow into that role, you might even turn this hobby into a side-job and earn some extra money with it.

There are many ways to become a coach, you don’t even have to be officially certified. However, if you are serious about it, I recommend applying to Coaching Star Alliance, where you can learn from other coaches. Improve your coaching skills by developing your own skills, It can be a great hobby and activity in retirement.

9) Consider Everyday Activities As Potential Hobbies

As I mentioned before. A new hobby doesn't have to be far away. Your daily activities are all potential hobbies in retirement. It's just a matter of a small change in awareness and attitude. You can turn an everyday activity into an active hobby. And here are a couple of options to give you inspiration:

Cooking

If you like to cook. You can consider turning into something a little bit more serious. You can devote your time in retirement experimenting with new recipes, recreate famous family recipes, or start a baking or catering business. Or you can volunteer at a soup kitchen or other charity to feed people in need.

When you're looking to improve your cooking skills, you may want to follow a Masterclass. There are several cooking classes available on the Masterclass platform. One of the most popular classes is how Gordon Ramsey teaches you to cook restaurant-worthy recipes at home.

Home Decorating

If you love to decorate your own home, you can consider turning it into a hobby or job and help others decorate their homes. You can start room by room in your own house and making it a retirement project. And maybe this will leads to requests from neighbors, friends, or family members.

When you truly want to specialize in home decorating, make sure to follow the Masterclass from Kelly Wearstler. She teaches all you need to know about interior design.

Organizing

If you get excited from a well-organized garage, then organizing can be your new hobby in retirement. You can have a lot of fun with organizing your own home and maybe others too. Or organize your past by dive into your family history and create a family tree or a scrapbook from old pictures for family events.

Socializing

Socializing is excellent for your health and happiness. Everybody needs a daily dose of human interaction in some form. And if you love to socialize, you can consider becoming more active and turn it into a hobby. For example, you can start hosting family reunions, starting a club, doing volunteer work, starting new traditions like neighborhood BBQ, or making event planning a new business in retirement.

Gardening

If you have a garden and are frequently busy to keep it beautiful. You can consider doing gardening even more regularly as a hobby. You can experiment with landscaping, growing vegetables, and applying for a garden contest. If you have a green thumb, you can consider becoming the go-to Gardner of your neighborhood and earn a bit of extra money in retirement. As you know, there are a lot of people with gardens that don't have enough time to maintain it properly.

Ron Finley teaches gardening via Masterclass. It is a great course if you want to improve your gardening skills.

Home Maintenance

Also, if you have an interest in doing maintenance of your house by yourself, you can create it into a hobby. And develop more skills and teach yourself more about new areas. This way, you also save a lot of money on handyman, plumbers, etc. You can even start a business as a handyman to earn some cash.

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10) Try Out New Things

The best way to find new hobbies is to try new things and see if it fits. And that means getting out of your comfort zone. Where you have to go after activities, you haven't done before. And that can be scary but also exciting at the same time—an ideal mix where you will definitely feel more alive.

Also, getting out of your comfort zone;

Improves your self-confidence,
You learn something new about yourself,
You meet new people, it boosts creativity,
It helps you to be more flexible when unexpected things happen in the future,
Ultimately it contributes to more happiness in your life.

So if this doesn't convince you, I don't know what does...?

When it comes to finding a new retirement hobby, you have to put yourself out there and accept the fact that not everything you try will be a home run. The quest to get a retirement hobby will teach you more about yourself. And it might take a few attempts, but the key is not to give up.

Because if you keep putting yourself out there, connecting with people, and exploring new things that feel exciting to you. You eventually will find a retirement hobby that feels like the right fit. And you'll meet interesting people and learn a bunch of new things along the way.

Ways to explore new hobbies:

Via Meetup: you can explore different interests that can lead to your new retirement hobby. And you can test the waters at a low cost.
Take part in the hobby of a friend or family member and see if it's something you enjoy.
Go to your nearby community center and see what kind of activities they have planned and apply for one of them.
Apply for a class at a nearby school you're interested in.
Attend a webinar or seminar about an exciting topic.
Follow the example of your children or grandchildren. They maybe have a hobby you would enjoy too, or you can become part of their hobby.
Create a retirement bucket list to see what things you want to do before you 'kick the bucket.'

Benefits of Having a Retirement Hobby

Many people underestimate the power of having a hobby. But having a hobby is good for your health and happiness, and that's what everyone wants, right? So, if you don't have a retirement hobby yet, let these facts convince you to find one today.

Multiple studies (2010) by universities in Kansas, Pittsburgh, and Texas researched the effect of hobbies and leisure pursuits on overall health. And these are the results;

Better Physical Health

People who have hobbies or other enjoyable leisure activities often have better physical health. They had a lower body mass index, smaller waists, lower blood pressure, lower stress hormones, and better overall physical function. And the results show that having hobbies is associated with a variety of benefits, including less severe disease and greater longevity.

Sleep More

The studies show that people who spent more time on their hobbies actually sleep better and more. Did you know that there are many ways to improve your sleep and that enough quality sleep is important for your health?

One of the most important factors to have quality sleep is to sleep on a quality mattress. If you want to improve your sleep quality, make sure to check out Puffy Mattrass, known as the best mattress currently available.

Less Stress

The research shows that leisure activities can help reduce stress. People with a lot of enjoyable activities dealt better with stressful life events. And they scored lower levels of negative moods and depression, and higher positive attitudes than their low-scoring counterparts.

More Happiness

The people who have enjoyable hobbies also had greater life satisfaction and felt their lives had a greater sense of purpose and meaning.

More Friends

Spending more time on hobbies also created a larger and more diverse social network. And a strong social network is important to stay healthy in retirement. You can find out more in my article, How To Stay Social In Retirement?