Balancing Hobbies and Family: How Do You Do It?

🤗 I don't see any problem with you making a doll for yourself! We all need to have our hobbies for our own enjoyment. Yes, the family is important but you are also important enough to take care of yourself and do things you like to do. Doing things like that is important to keep up! It helps our mental health and it gives us enjoyment. How can we tell others to take care of themselves if we don't take care of ourselves? Don't quit making dolls. Just set up a couple of hours to do things for yourself. Don't spend all day on it! Maybe you can show your step kids how to make dolls too! Or just show them how you do it. They might enjoy watching or taking part in what you are good at.

Setting up time management skills as helped me tremendously. Dealing with chronic pain I feel like I let a lot of people down since I can’t do as much as frequently. Easiest thing for me is to “hit multiple birds with one stone” as in if I need to get in exercise and a friend wants to talk or hangout I’ll go for a walk and call them if I can or meet up with my friend for a workout so I feel like I’m not neglecting what I need to do but also still getting connection. So if you’re example what if you made the doll while around your family with your dog? Or a “hobby date” where family just picks something to make or create together individually but y’all are with each other (one person write, another draws, another builds something, you work on your doll). Whatever works for you and those you do want to be around. I definitely think if you want to and it brings joy you can find a work around to make it life giving for you and the rest of your family. But I definitely understand the struggle of feeling like there’s limited time and space. What I have to remind myself is once I get back into or start a hobby that I really enjoy it usually does give me more energy (as long as I balance it out) and makes me feel better which also gives me more energy once I get into the habit of incorporating it. One thing that’s recently helped me lately is reading the time management section of the book, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” along with the other parts. It’s helped me get more centered on how I want to spend my time and manage where I actually do so I can shift into more alignment.