Credit: Getty
3 min read
We all know how good having a hobby can be for us – but why do so many women struggle to try something new in the first place? Stylist takes a closer look.
Like many of us, I tried to pick up a new hobby during lockdown. Faced with an endless slew of Zoom calls, an overactive mind and way too much free time, I needed to take my mind off of things – and learning a new skill felt like the perfect antidote to the stagnancy of life during a pandemic.
First, I tried watercolour painting. I follow a number of incredible watercolour artists on Instagram, and I’d always thought it looked like a nice way to relax and unwind. But that didn’t end up being the case. Not only did I struggle to think of anything original or interesting to paint (the only thing I could come up with was a couple of potted plants and the occasional flower), but when I did try to do something different, it ended up looking nothing like what I’d imagined, leaving me more frustrated than when I’d started.
Fed up with my lack of inherent ability, I decide to move on to pottery – but the same thing happened again. Despite following the instructions to a T, my creation looked nothing like the little vase on the box; the texture was rough, the handles were bendy and the shape was questionable. Soon after, I moved on to embroidery, but I found myself at a dead end once more when my thread kept getting tangled. Calligraphy, paint by numbers and macramé all ended up the same way – as soon as I discovered I wasn’t brilliant, I was done.
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