I decided that my first retirement hobby was going to be learning how to DJ. I’ve been a lifelong music listener, especially electronic (or EDM as the kids are calling it now), and thought this would be fun. I waited to try it out until I retired and literally started from square one. I should probably change my DJ name to DJ Slow Go considering how things are progressing. I’ve noticed three stages so far learning a new hobby:
- Stage 1: Maximum Enthusiasm
- Stage 2: Random Flailing
- Stage 3: The Long, Slow Grind
You know the saying “It’s all downhill from here”? Well, that’s the start of any new hobby. You have youthful excitement for your new thing. You’re spending lots of time learning. You’re getting better by leaps and bounds, improving hour by hour. It’s exactly how you thought it would be and you’re disappointed you didn’t start years or even decades ago.
And then. . .
Things aren’t quite as easy. You plateau. Maybe you begin backsliding a bit. Your enthusiasm dwindles. You’re spending less and less time on your new hobby. Why can’t this be easier? You flail around a bit and begin thinking maybe this isn’t the right hobby for you. Shouldn’t it click a little better? Or at all? I mean, this is supposed to be fun! Why are we even doing this if there’s no enjoyment to it?
The key to a new hobby though is surviving the Random Flailing and making it to the third stage. The Long, Slow Grind is where you find the form of practice that you enjoy enough to spend consistent time with it. This may take a while depending on how familiar you are with your hobby before you begin. I recommend experimenting a bit to see which form of practice you find most enjoyable. This is likely to change over time and may not be the same day in and day out. It might look different based on how much time you have available. Possibly you need different styles of practice to keep things fresh and interesting. Or maybe you are a creature of habit and doing the same thing every day is what locks you in.
My Maximum Enthusiasm stage with DJing lasted two weeks. By the middle of my first month, I got a little burned out, however I was spending so much time with my Calendar Club project that I just didn’t feel like spending time learning a new hobby. My Random Flailing stage lasted for a month before I managed to get back into the swing of things. I’ve been on a bit of a reading frenzy working through the entire Brandon Sanderson bibliography and it took me a while to pivot back to DJing. I’ve now gotten into a nice groove where I spend 15-30 minutes each day working on my music library then another 60-90 minutes recording a mix. I’ll then listen to this mix on my runs/walks over the next 24 hours before starting again. The primary impetus for me to get into DJing was to listen and interact with the music I love in a new way, which this structure allows me to do.
There’s probably a fourth stage out there awaiting me and I’m excited to see what it looks like once I arrive.
