Last year I gave up my Krav Maga self-defense training when I was in the middle of changing jobs. I never picked it back up.
While I stay quite busy splitting my time between my three main sources of income, last month I began to feel like something was missing. I was getting too comfortable with my daily routine– bored, too.
So I decided to start training in martial arts again, this time signing up for a Muay Thai gym. It’s already reinvigorated my sense of drive across other areas of my life. Here are the top 5 reasons you should start a new hobby today.
1. It breaks up your current routine
As humans we search for a sense of regularity. We often find it in our daily activities.
For example, my days typically consist of working from home in the morning, primarily on my computer, lifting weights, and then training a few clients in the late afternoon and evening. I enjoy this routine, but flying on autopilot has its dangers.
You aren’t as sharp. Everything is too calculated and expected. By training in Muay Thai every other day I have something new to look forward to. It also has changed my lifting routine, to accommodate for the added exercise and fatigue.
2. It pushes you outside of your comfort zone
When I stepped into the Muay Thai gym for the first time I didn’t know what to expect. It was a lot different than the place I used to train Krav Maga at– more serious, less friendly even.
The seasoned fighters looked at me with a sense of superiority. And they were superior. But rather than backing down, being nervous, and quitting after one day– I took this as a challenge.
I was far from comfortable training that day. I wasn’t able to execute crisp Thai kicks or jump rope like a boss. But being too comfortable can be a bad thing. You’ll cease to explore new opportunities and your growth with falter across the board.
By throwing yourself at something new, that you’re inexperienced at, you’ll be pushed outside of your comfort zone. This is a good thing. You must stay accustomed to living at the edge of your comfort zone to ensure steady growth and progress.
3. You’ll learn new skills
This point is obvious. By taking Muay Thai, I’ll learn a host of new fighting skills.
4. It gives you a new area to set goals for
The habit of setting and achieving goals is the most important habit a man can build. By entering into a new hobby, you now have a whole new area of your life that where you can practice setting and accomplishing goals.
For my Muay Thai experience I’ll start small. My first goal is to be able to execute a Thai kick with my left and have it feel as natural as with my right. I’ll work my way up to bigger goals as I improve.
This is the beauty of starting at something from scratch. At first you’ll set one small goal after another. This cycle will build momentum, and before you know it, you’ll no longer be a novice. More importantly, this momentum will carry over to other areas of your life and give you the confidence to crush more and bigger goals.
5. You’ll meet new people
Another obvious point. When you try something new, you’re bound to meet new people. Whether these turn out to be man friends or cute girls depends on the hobby you choose, but either way meeting new people is always a positive thing.
Potential Hobbies
I’ll leave you with a short list of potential hobbies for you to try today:
1. Martial arts/self-defense: Muay Thai, Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, Krav Maga
2. Cooking
3. Salsa Dancing
4. Lifting weights (you should already be doing this)
5. Yoga
6. Writing
7. Mountain Biking
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Read Next: 5 Reasons To Learn Krav Maga
Great article Jefe. The truest measure of getting out of the comfort zone is when your nervous or obviously…uncomfortable. That rush of cortisol and adrenaline and anxiety is always followed by a reward concoction of feel good hormones that’s hard to match. Your mind/body reward you for not being a pussy.
One hobby I’d like to add is horseback riding. Galloping on a horse is a feeling that can’t be reproduced in smart cars and hybrids and it is what our ancestors did since the beginning of history. The fresh air, the learning of how to control this behemoth, the speed, the relaxation is rare combination. One problem is that most instructors are females and the style is mostly the uppidty english style. Try to find a guy or just get over it and learn. Another funny thing is that horses act like human females, according to my instructor. There were times when I was soft to the horse and my instructor would tell me to be dominant with her, don’t sound like your begging her to gallop, to lead her in the direction you want, and if she did her duty to be sweet and reward…sound familiar? Horseback riding is something that got feminized BIG TIME but like everything else just take it back and make your ancestors proud.
Totally agree. I took riding lessons myself years ago. Don’t look at it as “uppity English style”. Look at it as cavalry style or hunting style. If you want to see some real man riding find a youtube video of the Grand National steeplechase.
Clay pigeon shooting is a great one. Shooting shotguns is a real blast!
Besides which, interesting hobbies help make you an interesting person. And give you things to talk about besides TV and Xbox.
8. Learning a musical Instrument.
9. Learning a foreign language.
10. Build a race car for the drag strip or gymkhana.
Why don’t women like me ? I have terrible luck with girls. I’m cute, honest and open. But it seems likes nobody wants me. Even when I do get a date the girl doesn’t seem interested in me and they never want to go on a second date. I even tried online dating and no luck at all! What am I doing wrong? I’m not perfect or close to it but I should have no problem getting a girl. Why? are girls attracted to losers? Girls seem really interested in me at first but it seems like they all get bored of me. Does any other guy have this issue? I would understand if it happened once or twice, but it happens with every single girl! What am I doing wrong? How can I fix this? I’m desperate. It seems like I can’t get a girl if my life depended on it.
Well you’ve game to the right website. Read a few articles n take your new enlightenment to meet women. Thank me later.
Read some of the articles here at ROK, a good place to start is Christian McQueen’s posts about game. And don’t be afraid to try what he suggests you don’t have anything to lose.
My troll-o-meter is deflecting somewhat. What guy describes himself as “cute”? Another thing is the rampant use of “I”, “I’m”, and “me” that makes me think the poster could be a woman.
Not troll ! first thanks to all the others, second I always felt like women don’t like me. Teachers, trainers, anyone. And this is
not just in my head. Many things have confirmed it. Sometimes they even
expressed discontent towards me. I try to talk to women and be as nice and friendly to them as possible, but they never give me the time of day. I’ve been rejected 6-7 times, I’m 17, and have never even come close to kissing a woman, Sorry if I sound annoying venting to you guys…
Post a pic of yourself and I’ll analyse it as a woman and tell you about yourself.
@ Mashenka, I have only posted one pic of myself and it was in the blog Occidentinvicta, search for it, I will post the link to that blog. : /
http://occidentinvicta.com/
6-7 times is nothing. Go try 100 approaches like Roosh V says about in his sites benchmark article “The Roosh V Program”
Dude at 17 if you lift and eat right you’ll be a Mack daddy boss. In fact I’d take a year or two off and just train and get in shape, develop and work on building your game up to a good level. Then enrollm in college and watch as you own and have your pick of any fine 19yo hottie there. When I was in undergrad Inwas fat but I got jacked by the time I was out and 24. I used to go back to use my old campus gym and it would amaze me how all these girls would be checking me out. One thing is I was pretty well read and had met people from all over the World hangin in a major city for grad school so coming back to a small town college and its gym at 24 you can see why at the time I had a certain level of contemp and pride for he guys and girls there and viewed them as naive and ignorant. If I had been less neurotic Incould have seized more opportunities. My point at 17 if you get in shape in say 2 years and work in your game you will be exposed to so many hot young women at that age and will have an chance to really improve your life because you invest in yourself and are able to be surrounded by young hotties. Don’t miss your chance. Good luck.
You’re probably just a boring loser type of guy who has set his sights too high. Try the 2’s and 3’s and the fat girls.
Hey where’s my sandwich, don’t keep me waiting woman.
Boil your head.
second time you have posted asking the same questions when we told you to drop the coward off of your name….I smell a troll or a plant to get info from us.
Ignore women and put your energies into any of the activities mentioned. Then the women will came to you.
lmao youre indian
Are you “cute, honest and open”?
For starters, stop being “cute”.
Then stop being “open”.
Shooting.
Serious shooting. See if you can earn NRA Distinguished Expert, and get into the bottom floor of Olympic grade com petition.
Seconded on the shooting. Both target/competition, as well as delving deep into tactical/situational shooting. Fantastic skills to learn and hone over a lifetime.
I really don’t like the use of the word hobby it sounds to kiddish. ART(developing, refinining, mastery, etc) is a better word. If men would approach every hobby like ARTISANS this world would be far SUPERIOR
I like the term “discipline”, not in the sense of disciplining oneself or others (although that is a part of it too), but the noun that means a branch of knowledge or skill that is studied intensively.
Yeah thats another PERFECT word. Alot of men just pickup hobbies and practice it OCASSIONALY. There is no skill/knowledge development , there is no reflection, or ambition to push beyond limit. Or in short NO MAN. They just do.
Probably my favorite post this week. Great advice for moving forward and good explanations for why its important. thank you.
Wood working. Even if you don’t have money for your own shop, there are clubs around. There is one near me that is very well equipped and very inexpensive to me a member of. There are a great group of guys there who you can learn a lot from.
Organized sports. Most guys do this when they are young but get out of it when they get older. I am a member of a fencing club. It’s tons of fun, a great way to stay fit (it is a great workout in it’s own right and it gives you a better incentive to hit the gym the other days of the week). We take part in weekly training sessions, club and area tournaments.
Yes. Wood working, and metal working. Anything related to motors, cars. Learn to solder, to use power tools. Many of us are artisans and we do not know about that.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on the value of learning a hobby like woodworking. I started in high school, and continued through college and grad school. It’s something where your skillset is greatly enhanced by shared social experience with master craftsmen, so you tend to seek out and make new connections with other men, and it certainly supports positive masculinity. That gets balanced by the fact that the majority of the time it’s a solitary hobby that inspires creativity from within yourself. I’m not sure of the role that played in meeting women, but in my early post-adolescent manboob days, my shop was my refuge and also a focal point for my pride, which was the fulcrum point of my self-confidence before I actually built the life experiences to be confident in my own right.
I suggest stamp or baseball card collecting, bird watching or playing kid video games as hobbies for you pyjama boys :o)
Back to your house on hen’s legs baba yaga.
Good article sir. You can make your world as big as you want it to be.
Everyone should be playing their favourite sport a couple times a week! I only got back into it in the last couple years where it has in rich my life!
Regarding hobbies everyone (particularly the younger fellow readers) needs to read the RooshV.com article ‘What Is Your Campaign?’ and the Goodlookingloser.com article ‘9 Things You Need to Do In 2014’ which is of similar effect.
TO quote Roosh:
“Campaigning is a natural state for men. Several hundred years ago, men would alternate between sessions of farming and war. An Athenian would plant seeds in his farm, sail off to war, then come back to reap the harvest. Only since the Industrial Revolution and the division of labor have men been reduced to a cog that does the same task every day in the same environment with the same people. Campaigns are a great way to break free from the monotony of modern life, to open your world view in the time it takes to reap a harvest.”
If you want to be like a typical woman/hipster/manboob/SWPL and try a million different sports & hobbies thats fine, you might get some nice facebook photos. But don’t expect mastery in any. Don’t sign up to a fighting gym, a dance school, buy a mountain bike and spend a couple hours per week learning a foreign language and expect to get anywhere. Instead campaign.
Spend 2 months spending a couple hours every day of the week conditioning, drilling, sparring & training fitness for a martial arts style.
Then put it back to an hour per week and start going to dance schools and bars every single evening for 2 months. Spend your mornings watching youtube clips and practicing routines.
Then put that back to an hour per week and start hitting mountain bike trails & parks every lunch break/evening and all day of the weekends for a couple months.
One year will pass and you’ll be at high level beginner-intermediate levels with a bunch of new skills you can then choose to maintain for life.
I’ve taken this approach since late last year when I first read that Roosh article and though my campaign is over 2 months I’ve been kicking ass with language more than I’d ever done in years of school classes. Thanks Roosh.
Trying out new things is the spice of life.
Do not let your insecurities to stop you from being alive.
Sadly you won’t meet any hot chicks doing Muay Thai. But you will be able to impress and probably scare them a little with your skills.
Btw, with respect to weight-lifting, I do not think this is necessary as long as you have good nutrition and do some form of resistance exercise. I speak for myself since I stopped doing weight-lifting years ago but have maintained a good physique through body-weight exercise and Muay Thai.
Another vote for learn an instrument. I started playing guitar at 13 and am now 30. I can play guitar, bass, drums, trumpet, harmonica, and the Irish tin flute. I find a combination of engineering (my job), weight lifting, and playing instruments a very satisfying day to all sides of mind and body.
Photography. Have a camera right? learn to use it, take a few pics of stuff, meet other artists and photographers in the area, look into model photography and shoot women.
It’s mostly buy in events where your chipping in $75 for the model and $50 for the studio time, but you meet attractive young local girls and interacting with them helps build frame.
PROTIP: Don’t try to hook up with models or you’ll get labeled the creepy guy and put onto a shit list. Instead meet normal women, tell them what you do, then they’ll get in their heads “I can model also”
“think so babe? I got a camera and a bed, lets see what you got”
One martial art I would recommend anyone take up is Capoeira. Do not get fooled by the fact that it involves music and “dancing” – it’s rooted in slavery and street crime after all. In the West unfortunately there is a proliferation of lame-ass Capoeira groups that only focus on the “dance” side – you can usually spot them because 90% the students are female, and the remaining 10% homosexuals.
But if you can find a genuine group, there’s shitloads to learn. It’s a BRUTAL workout, you learn to perform acrobatics as well as down-and-dirty fighting techniques, you learn to play musical instruments and – if you get serious about it – at some point you’re pretty much forced to take up studying Portuguese too. Also, good Capoeira mestres are natural alphas and there is a lot you can pick up in the way of inner game just by being around them.
As for finding a good group to train with, just try out a few. If the female to male ratio in the class is no higher than 50% and you get back home bruised and sore as hell after your first class, you might be on the right track.
Krav sucks I’m afraid. Eskrima, Pencat Silat, Muay Thai, Kick Boxing, Savate, Judo, BJJ, Sambo and a few of the various styles of Karate however are all good. Krav tends to be full of McDojos.
Jefe-
On Thai fighting-
Break down how you train at your gym (ie 4 rounds jump rope, 4 Rds shadow boxing, 6 rd on Muay Thai bag, 4 rd sparring,etc.)
At my d boxing gym we shared space with thai fighters and they had a steel column in our d warehouse buding wrapped in foam and duct tape. Kicking that column alone would shatter your bones but wrapped in foam hardened them and made our legs (their coach showed me this trick btw) and all our legs were like ball bats.
On “weight lifting”-
The aforementioned term is better called strength training. I’m not one those body weight only ass hats but how many typical strip center gym goers do you see doing hand stand push ups, pistols, one arm pull ups, and high rep one arm push ups. I think Olympic compound lifts and body weight are probably
Optimal methods for combat sports enthusiasts. This guy is a bad ass you should check out who has education and experience- Ross Enamait at Rosstraining.com. I agree with Ross building power to transpose to your sport is more important than method whether free weights, odd objects, or body weight. All that matters is defeating opponents in combat- if he training doesn’t help you win- its useless. The good news is many have suceeeed using one or he other or both main styles of training. I just think ombat sports deserve proper acknowledgement for the physical art form they are.