How to advance with your hobby amid roadblocks

Don't know how to proceed with your hobby when you get stuck? Here's what you can do instead of quitting.

Imagine this: you finally found the motivation to start your hobby. You acquired some basic supplies, set some time aside, and began finding your flow in the process. And then… you hit a roadblock. You don’t know how or what to do to continue forward, you must make a decision that determines your next step, and you have no idea how to proceed. You then set your hobby aside, thinking you’ll come back to it later… but you never end up doing so.

This scenario is all too common when it comes to encountering roadblocks with hobbies. Just like anything else, it is much easier to give up than continuing to work through the challenge(s) at hand. Prematurely giving up on your hobby, however, inhibits it from blossoming into its true potential and can make it more difficult to come back to.

To overcome roadblocks, it is important to first understand the root causes that often lead to quick quitting. One cause is avoidance. It takes much less effort to dodge something that is difficult than to confront and troubleshoot it. Another cause is ease. It is, evidently, much simpler to opt for less intensive options than it is to choose the more difficult courses of action. Keeping both ideas at your forefront can help as you work through your hobby obstacles. With this established, here are the concrete steps you can take to overcome these hobby roadblocks.

Write Down All Your Questions

Before you decide to give up on your hobby, put your work down and take some time to pinpoint where you are stuck. Does your outcome not look correct? Did something become tangled? Do you not know how to do a technique necessary for your hobby project? These are a few example questions that may help you determine the current condition of what you’re working on, and what led up to this point. Write an answer down that explains what the actual roadblocks are.

Once you know which roadblocks you have encountered, then begin thinking through specific questions that pertain to working through them. If there are multiple variables involved that could be responsible for these issues, make a list of every one you can think of. Not every roadblock you encounter will be that layered, but ensure your overall list is as complete as possible. This provides a solid foundation for what your next steps will include to stick with it.

Prioritize and Narrow Your Focus

Now that you have a strong list that informs what you need to do next, it then becomes important to prioritize where you plan to start. Don’t start working through your priority just yet; just make a point in this stage to isolate it.

If there is a particular task or two that is a logical starting point, make that your highest priority. Some tasks aren’t always contingent on being completed in any particular order, so if that’s the case, pick any task to begin with.

Regardless of how you choose to prioritize where to start, it is important to select just a couple tasks at a time. This ensures you can really direct your focus towards those and bring those to completion to actually start overcoming the roadblocks.

Find Time and Space to Concentrate

With your first (and possibly second) priority established, it then becomes essential to set some time aside in a quiet space where you can focus deeply. You can either schedule a time block that serves as your troubleshooting window, or bring yourself here on your own time (read What to Do If You Never Finish Projects You Start to determine which could be best for you). Either way, show up for yourself to work through the roadblock you’re encountering.

It is also important, as previously mentioned, that you find a quiet space for this. This means no distractions that can derail you from troubleshooting where you’re currently stuck. While external noise can certainly be a distraction, the largest distraction is oftentimes phones. If you need to watch a tutorial video to work through your hobby roadblocks, be super mindful of how you’re using your phone and consider temporarily blocking distractions (read How to Eliminate Distractions to Get Somewhere With Your Hobby for suggestions on how to do this).

Establish Concrete Steps to Address

With time and a quiet space to focus within, you can now take that priority (or two) you established and break it down into smaller steps. This makes something that seems insurmountable become much more manageable to execute (especially if you’re prone to giving up quickly).

To determine if your steps are small enough for you to actually complete them, take some time to reflect on what you came up with. If it genuinely seems like your steps are manageable enough that you would start today, your next steps are probably small enough. If it seems like the next steps are a large leap with where you are now, see if you can make them a bit smaller to start somewhere.

It is important to note that you can only go so small with these steps and that you will need some level of motivation to get things rolling. But, you can at least start working through roadblocks by starting with steps you can handle.

Make Progress One Step at a Time

Now that priority one (and possibly two) are broken down into feasible milestones, you must now start working through those one by one. Don’t half start one step and then move onto another step; focus on completion. Focus on troubleshooting where you’re going wrong if you’re having trouble reaching completion.

If you find yourself losing focus and becoming distracted, come back to the step once you’ve regained focus. Focus on achieving one small victory for each step each time you get around to your hobby, even if you don’t yet complete the step itself.

With enough well-directed focus and troubleshooting, you will figure out what you need to do, even if it takes a bit of time. Allow yourself to achieve these small victories and stick with it. Not only will your consistency and persistence enable you to achieve the priorities you had originally established, but you will become more confident in your abilities overall.

From Roadblocks to Full Speed Ahead

Once you become more adept at working through roadblocks that arise with your hobby, it will become much simpler to address these overtime. Follow these five steps to continue sticking with your hobby when the process becomes tough and avoid falling into the trap of avoidance and ease along the way.

It is important to remember that a “roadblock” does not mean a “dead end.” Oftentimes, you just need to try a couple (or few) approaches to navigate around it. After that, you can continue cruising along and enjoying the hobby that you saved from hitting a dead end before it truly started.

Happy hobbying!