You’re Allowed to be Bad at Your Hobbies

And you don’t ever have to get good.

I have written a lot of stuff (just, so many articles) on turning hobbies into side-hustles and how distasteful I find that. However, I want to expand on a point I’ve only touched on a little bit in those articles: allowing yourself to be bad at something.

A hobby, by definition, is something that you do for fun. Something that brings you joy or happiness. It doesn’t have to be productive, it doesn’t have to be useful, and it certainly doesn’t have to make you money.

But, one of the things that often gets overlooked about hobbies is that it’s okay to be bad at them. Generally speaking, unless you’re a prodigy, you’re not going to be immediately good at whatever you try. So, you have to go through the process of being bad at something before you can get good at that thing, just like everyone else.

Unfortunately, that’s where a lot of people get hung up. Generally, when you do something, the goal is to be good at it. However, nobody likes being bad at something — if you’re bad at it, why even bother?

There is a sort-of joke that floats around my social media circles about all the kids who were put in gifted classes in school and are now burnt out and depressed because of all the expectations put on them as kids. They nurtured our creativity and encouraged us to try things and find the stuff that we’re good at, giving us positive reinforcement along the way.

Unfortunately for a lot of those kids, they wound up feeling pressured to go into STEM fields to take advantage of their brilliance, and now they are burnt-out husks of the formerly energetic, high-achieving kids they once were.

As one of those kids, I relate. I’ve been a perfectionist for quite a long time, and that feeling was encouraged, however unintentionally, by the teachers pushing me to excel. As a result, whenever I try a new thing, I tend to get discouraged if I’m not suitably good at it immediately, resulting in quite a few dropped hobbies.

I admit, my perfectionism isn’t completely the result of my schooling, as I was already a neurotic, bipolar kid as it was. However, the pressure to excel pushed me and many like me to become even more neurotic than we already were.

Honestly, with regards to my perfectionism, being transferred to the school for messed-up kids in high school was great for me. I could get As and Bs in my classes without much effort, so I was one of the highest achievers in the school since it was focused on therapeutic interventions rather than schoolwork. For many of the kids there, they were more focused on just surviving than getting grades, so my natural aptitude for tests and writing papers served me well.

Community college also helped with that, as I was able to take classes I wanted to take. I wound up taking quite a few philosophy courses since it was interesting to me and I loved engaging my brain with thought exercises that had no tangible result.

Unfortunately, my personal sense of perfectionism stuck with me throughout that whole experience, and when combined with a lack of discipline, has resulted in quite a few dropped hobbies. In high school, I loved to draw, although I was never very good at it. As I got older, I encountered numerous artists my age and younger who were fantastic at their craft, and I wound up just giving it up since I felt I’d never get that good.

I’ve also had an interest in music for quite a long time. When I was a young kid (four or five), I was drawn to the family’s piano. I would play things by ear, plunking out melodies I’d heard through trial and error. My parents eventually got me piano lessons, but I didn’t have the discipline to practice, so I never got terribly far. I eventually taught myself a small repertoire of songs that I knew by heart, but after moving into my present house, I stopped altogether. My family piano, which my parents gave me as a gift, is currently sitting unused in my living room.

I’ve picked up other hobbies — most recently carving spoons — but I have trouble keeping up with it, so I don’t put in as much practice as I probably should. I recently picked up my ukulele after letting it collect dust for a few years, and it’s been nice playing again, even though I don’t play much because I don’t want to bother my wife.

The problem with my perfectionism — a problem that many others have as well — is that I refuse to allow myself to be bad at something. As I said above, what’s the point of doing something if you’re not going to be good at it?

The point is to have fun at what you’re doing. Your hobbies are supposed to be fun, things you do for enjoyment. So what if you’re bad at it? As long as you’re having fun, that’s what matters.

Yeah, it sounds like a worthless platitude, but it’s true. Unfortunately, it gets shoved down our throats as kids and young adults while we are simultaneously getting a seemingly opposite message: you need to excel at your schoolwork, your job, everything you do. We are constantly pushed to be above average, which sort of makes the whole “just have fun” thing sound hollow.

But like I said, almost nobody just picks up a hobby and is immediately great at it. I’ve talked to people who are fantastic artists who were good when they started but admit that after they learned formal anatomy and went through art classes, they improved dramatically. For almost everyone who is “naturally talented,” there is a ton of practice and study behind their work, whether formal or self-taught.

It’s like the story of Picasso being asked for a sketch. He makes a quick drawing and says “That’ll be $20,000.” The person is taken aback and refuses, saying he only spent five minutes on it. Picasso replies “You’re not paying for the five minutes it took to make, you’re paying for the 10,000 hours it took to perfect my craft.” Who knows if it’s true, but the point of the story remains.

So what if you’re bad at something? What harm does it do to anyone? Do you like to draw? Draw whatever you want. Even if you never show it to anyone, the point is to do it for yourself. Do you want to learn how to play the guitar? Go for it. Remember that you’ll probably be bad for a while, and even if you never get great at it, just play for the love of playing.

If you’ve ever been to karaoke, you’ve probably seen some truly bad performers get up and sing their lungs out. I’ve seen people who could neither stay on key nor stay on time, and at the end of their performance, you applaud because it’s over. People who do that kind of thing (myself included — I have the enthusiasm, if not the talent) are getting up on stage and doing it even though they’re bad at it. They most likely know that they’re bad, but they do it anyway because it’s fun.

Let yourself be bad at something. Allow yourself to screw up, or produce something sub-par, or do something poorly. I will say it again: the point of your hobbies is to have fun. Being good at something is not a requirement to have fun doing it.

Remember the people like Mister Rogers and Bob Ross, who taught us that it’s okay to not be the best at things. You will always make mistakes, but they can be happy accidents instead. You can do things and not be the best, but that’s okay, as long as you have fun. Be kind to yourself — nobody’s perfect.

I know I just spent 1,300 or so words writing about this, but it’s still hard for me, so I know it’ll be hard for a lot of you too. Something like this is easy to say but hard to do — of course, it’s okay for people to be bad at something, unless, of course, it’s me.

But, I implore you to work on this. Try to be okay with being bad at stuff. Allow yourself to suck at something and have fun doing it. Tell yourself it’s okay to not be fantastic at something immediately, and then tell yourself again until you believe it.

Remember, hobbies are supposed to be fun, not stressful. Again, the goal is to have fun, not give yourself a panic attack because you’re not perfect the first time.

Now, go forth, do stuff, be bad, and have fun!

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Here are some other things I’ve written: