Looking to improve your performance at work? Start a hobby!
Having a hobby can help you in more ways than one. It breaks your routine by offering a new kind of challenge outside of work and provides you an outlet for stress. It can also improve your physical health by lowering your blood pressure and reducing your waist circumference and body mass index (BMI). In addition, studies also show that engaging in an interesting hobby can help reduce your risk of depression.
Your Hobby Can Make You More Productive at Work
However, there is something more that you should know. Having a hobby can also help you improve your performance at work. According to a study conducted by experts at the San Francisco State University, engaging in creative activities can improve a person’s performance ratings by as much as 15% to 30%.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, collected its data from 350 people with different jobs and engaged in different creative pursuits. A second group comprised of 90 Air Force captains was also evaluated to see if having a hobby affected their performance in any way. Surprisingly, both groups proved that having a hobby gave their work performance a much needed boost.?
How Having a Hobby Boosts Your Productivity
There are a lot of underlying reasons why your hobby can directly affect your performance at work. Here are some of them.
- It relieves stress. Having a hobby or engaging in activities that stimulate a different part of the brain can help relieve stress, make you feel happy and improve the way you look at life in general. Thus, having an interesting hobby can also help reduce and prevent burnouts at work.
- It fosters creativity. Doing something simple with your hands relaxes your brains and allows you to see things in a different perspective. It encourages you to be in the moment and takes your mind off the many pressures you are experiencing. In addition, it also allows your subconscious mind to work on complex problems in the background and help you come up with creative solutions.?
- It enhances your self-esteem. Having a hobby can fill the inadequacy you feel when you are not happy about your performance at work.?
It really doesn’t matter what your hobby is. As long as you are doing creative activities that energize and renew your fervor for life, you will always have more productivity at work and enjoy a better quality of life.
