What If Your Hobby Is the Best Career Move You’ll Ever Make?

This past weekend, I found myself immersed in a game of Dragonbane—a tabletop roleplaying game akin to Dungeons & Dragons—playing over Zoom with friends in Sweden, while I sat in my home in Brooklyn. It’s a hobby I’ve held onto since junior high school. Over the years, I’ve had plenty of chances (and temptations) to turn it into something more “productive”—a podcast, a monetized stream, a side hustle. But I haven’t. And honestly? That might be the reason it’s still so creatively fulfilling.

There’s a kind of magic that emerges when you do something purely for the joy of it. Not for likes, not for money, not for an audience. Just because it’s fun.

And yet, in today’s hyper-optimized world, that kind of magic is getting harder to find.

Are We Losing the Point of Hobbies?

We live in a time where hobbies are quietly being hijacked by hustle culture. What used to be a space for personal joy, stress relief, and playful curiosity has become another potential revenue stream. It’s not uncommon now to ask, “Could this hobby become a business?” or “Should I be posting this on TikTok?” before we even let ourselves enjoy it.

But here’s the thing: when we turn every free moment into a productivity opportunity, we risk losing the very spark that makes our ideas innovative, our minds fresh, and our lives joyful.

The Case for Unproductive Time

Hobbies aren’t just downtime. They’re incubators for creativity. They offer us the chance to explore, to make weird and wonderful connections, and to step outside of our normal patterns of thought. Studies have shown that people who regularly engage in hobbies for pure enjoyment report lower levels of stress and higher levels of life satisfaction. That’s not just good for your well-being—it’s good for your work, too.

In fact, some of the most unconventional ideas in professional life come from outside the office—from the painting studio, the hiking trail, the improv class, or yes, even the fantasy world of a tabletop RPG.

Hobbies as Professional Development? Absolutely.

What if we started seeing hobbies not as distractions from our professional growth, but as contributors to it?

Hobbies can:

• Spark unconventional thinking.

• Build new skills (storytelling, problem-solving, collaboration).

• Relieve stress, which directly improves cognitive function and innovation.

In other words, the time you spend indulging your curiosities might be the best investment you can make in your career—not because you're trying to monetize it, but because it nourishes the parts of you that need room to grow.

So, What Sticks with You?

What often sticks in our memories and moves our careers forward are the moments that break the mold—not the ones that follow a formula. When we give ourselves permission to play, explore, and not be productive, we unlock something powerful: the ability to think differently.

So the question becomes not “How can I turn my hobby into a job?” but rather:

Am I giving myself the freedom to do things simply because they bring me joy?

Because often, that joy is where the real growth begins.