A Life In Review

I was talking to a friend the other day about the fact that toward the end of the year I basically quit doing new things. I give up and let the rest of the year fall where it may. It’s chaos and holidays and fun and my focus isn’t on goals and learning. When the new year hits though, it’s like my brain has a reset button and suddenly I’m ready for all of those things again.

If you are anything like me, I wanted to pull together a list of hobbies that you can try in the coming year. Some of these are actual hobbies of mine and some are ones that my friends do or ones that I want to pick up because I think they could be beneficial. I’m only going to give you 6 because there are too many things being thrown at you already and this is supposed to be fun.

Let’s get to it:

1. Sourdough: if you know me IRL, you know that I am obsessed with sourdough. The funniest part about this hobby is that I hardly ever make actual sourdough bread. I make cookies, sweet breads, tortillas, English muffins and anything else I can add sourdough to because I do not have the patience for the bread, but that is the beauty of this hobby. You can commit to it at any level. I’m going to link my “Sourdough for Dummies” post in case you want to give this a try. I promise you won’t regret it.
2. Sewing/Mending: I have never been good at sewing, but I’ve also never given up on it because I feel like this is such a cool life skill to have. I also know that it can be a really fun hobby if you have the patience. Mending is something that I started to focus on in 2025 (mending things instead of throwing them out or replacing them), and those two things can be combined into a beautiful and beneficial hobby. Etsy has some amazing (and easy) patterns if you are looking to support small businesses, or you can find some really awesome patterns on Amazon (here’s my favorite sewing supplies).
3. Gardening: there are so many levels of this to try. You can start with a flower bed of wild flowers or a small vegetable garden. They have the coolest planter boxes now, so you don’t even have to have a nice place to plant. This is a hobby that I am going to attempt in the coming year. I am so drawn to the idea of growing something with my own hands and reaping what I nurture.
4. Learn a New Language: this idea came from one of our friends. He is 41 and just randomly decided that he wanted to learn a new language this year and he stuck with it. It was really cool to see. A lot of us studied a second language in school and then forgot it all when we left, there’s not reason we can’t pick it back up now. Duo-Lingo is a great way to help and I’m sure there are other apps to help with that.
5. Dance: HEAR ME OUT… before you skip this one, just hear me out. Just because you are grown doesn’t mean you have to stop dancing. I also don’t mean dance around your kitchen, I mean find a local class and sign up. Learn the art of dancing. Fall in love with music and movement. Grab a friend and do it together, grab your spouse and dance the night away.
6. Journaling: this is another hobby that can be simple or super detailed. I journal once a month on good ole college bound paper, but if you want to dive deep there are two really cool ways to journal as a full on hobby. The first is via a “junk journal”. Basically you journal your trash. So receipts and papers and wrappers and track the things you do throughout the year via your “junk”. The other way to journal is a more traditional scrapbooking way called a “bullet journal”. A lot of people will use these fancy pens and draw and design and track and graph throughout the year. All of these are a commitment but will give you fun memories to look back on.

I’m really excited for 2026, whether I pick up a new hobby or not, I am ready to face the new year head on and I hope that you are too because ready or not the new year is almost here! I hope you are enjoying your last day of 2025, and let me (maybe) be the first to wish you a Happy New Year.