This question is a debate which you may have. Can fitness be a hobby or is it an obligatory mundane task to perform?
To consider whether fitness is a hobby you have to define for yourself what fitness & hobbies are to you. A hobby is usually defined as something you do in your free time & enjoy. I would like to add that it also involves some kind of skill or personal development. Sitting on the couch & watching television is something you probably enjoy but does not make you a better person.
Fitness also means a lot to different people. You might consider a brisk long walk on Sunday with the family as your weekly fitness depending on your age, gender, & eventual health. Others might say that is not even close to their definition of fitness.
So first thing to think about whether fitness is a hobby, chore or way of life for you is how you define these terms and how others define them. Why you take care of your fitness determines whether it is a hobby- whether fitness can be a hobby highly depends on perception. If fitness is something which you regularly do voluntarily, out of your own motivation and enjoy it it is most likely a hobby.
If you take care of your fitness because you have gotten a bad diagnosis or you feel fat & unattractive it is a lot more likely that the starting point if your fitness plan is a chore. For you to make success more likely try to think more about the benefits you will have once you get fitter rather than the time you have to invest to get there.
What can also help you to see fitness as a hobby & less as an obligation is to see the privilege in the fact that you can still move freely. If you have all your fingers, hands, legs & your brain functioning in the way which would be considered as “normal”, you are already better off than many others.
Another approach which I learned is to shift your mindset from working out to recharging your batteries. Your sessions in the gym should challenge you & let you leave with a feeling of accomplishment. If you leave the gym beaten down, overwhelmed & exhausted it will become a chore. A workout should put more into you than it takes out if you. Keep the madness to maximum tests, races & competitions if you want to do it.
Working out with a purpose & seeing fitness as training will also help hugely to stay on track. Training towards a clear goal will make progression meaningful & trackable. You will be way more likely to turn fitness into your hobby when you have fun & meaningful milestones to reach.
One of the biggest questions I get is how I do it all. Writing a blog, traveling the world, having two children & exercising five times a week. Once these pillars of my life became meaningful, prioritized & interesting goals to pursue I got more crafty to achieve them. I sleep more than I used to as it makes me more productive. I learned how to use journals to be more productive when I am traveling. I optimized my gym time to get the most work possible done in the least amount of time by using supersets.
You can do these things to and get a bit more crafty once you think positive about the goals you want to achieve. That’s where creativity lives.
Most things start out as a chore or obligation before they turn into a hobby. Especially when there is a lot of skill involved.
Think of this list of hobbies:
All of these are the most frustrating when you start. You invest a lot of time with little to no result. Once you stick with them it becomes easier and the results at the same time increase.
