My favorite place to be on a Wednesday evening is karaoke night at The Red Shed, sitting on a stool and listening as everyone sings the wrong words off-key and a measure ahead, behind or somehow both.
A friend once told me that singing in front of a group of peers was their worst nightmare. Even in this low-stakes setting, the idea of not being perceived as good at something prevents many from participating. From early on in our development, many of us are socialized to the notion that our value as a person is conditional upon our achievements. Too often we base our self-worth on the things we are good at rather than the things we enjoy.
There are a number of things I am currently bad at doing: going to sleep at a decent hour, waiting until the last few miles remaining to get gas, keeping my bathroom counter clean and much more. However, none of these things bother me terribly as they are not outward facing.
We are not born feeling inadequate. This is a learned trait.
Fear prevents us from trying new things. When we are met with hesitations trying new things, we are doing ourselves the disservice of not allowing ourselves to grow and learn.
Participating in activities or hobbies you don’t excel at is actually good for you. By not being met with immediate success, we are training our brains to give ourselves more grace in our day-to-day lives. This also lets us practice fixing mistakes in a low stakes setting. Overcoming struggle can ultimately increase our rates of success in the long run.
Having hobbies can also help alleviate the stress of our daily responsibilities. Carving time out of your day to focus on an activity you enjoy while still feeling productive helps us to avoid the repeating cycle of distracting ourselves from our responsibilities with meaningless tasks, or the “procrastination doom loop.” As much as I love social media, having a hobby that doesn’t rely on liking or commenting reduces the looming thought of, “I should be doing something more productive with my time,” that comes as a side effect of scrolling.
In turn, this also promotes a reduced screen time. An Exploding Topics survey from 2024 found that Gen Z spends an average of 9 hours a day on their phones. Spending this much time staring at a screen not only has physical side effects such as neck and back pain, but mental effects as well, such as disrupted sleep schedule and increased feelings of anxiety when separated from our devices.
Not excelling at something is the same as having a bad day — it happens, and can actually benefit us! So even if karaoke night isn’t your scene, take the singing outside of the shower. Embracing things we enjoy not only alleviates stress, but encourages us to give ourselves grace when we don’t succeed in other aspects of our lives.
