It had been nearly 20 years since I graduated college, and I hadn’t pulled an all-nighter in all that time—until that night, when I found myself burning the midnight oil as a long-tenured business owner. My company was stuck on a stubborn design problem, and the solution we so badly needed kept slipping right through our fingers. I was overtired and growing increasingly demoralized, but giving up was never an option. Relenting simply isn’t part of the entrepreneurial vocabulary.
That’s when I recalled a lesson an old mentor once shared with me: when two forces clash and neither will give way, sometimes the smartest move is to step back. When you hit pause, built-up tension fades, and the path forward suddenly comes into focus. Maybe it was my exhaustion talking, but I was convinced this strategy was exactly what we needed. We all stepped away and took a much-needed collective breather.
The next day, I hit the gym, then spent the whole afternoon playing at the park with my kids. That night, my wife and I tried our hand at a brand-new recipe. When I walked back into the office, I had a rested mind and a completely fresh perspective. We were finally able to pull away from the fine details and see the full big picture we’d been missing. We found our solution in no time.
When it comes to resetting your energy and creativity, rest is only one side of the coin. Cultivating hobbies outside of work is the other equally critical half. I’m a firm believer in the power of creative outlets, and I regularly encourage all of our employees to carve out dedicated time for the things they love outside the office. When I’m hiring new team members, I always prioritize candidates who have rich, fulfilling lives that exist separate from their work. Here’s why having outside hobbies is so critical to professional success:
Hobbies boost your confidence
Letting your mind wander freely through an unstructured hobby delivers a surprisingly powerful boost to your self-assurance. That’s the core finding of a study from Drexel University, which explored the impact of 45 minutes of unstructured art creation on study participants. The research included adults ranging from 18 to 59 years old, who were given full creative freedom to make whatever they wanted using markers, modeling clay, and collage materials. After the activity, participants reported measurable increases in self-efficacy—their confidence in their own abilities and their capacity to complete challenging tasks. Researchers tied this jump in confidence to the supportive, nonjudgmental creative space the activity provided, which is exactly the kind of environment hobbies naturally create.
Most work environments are riddled with performance anxiety, but hobbies act as a pressure release valve for that constant stress. When you pursue a hobby, you create for the pure sake of creating, not to hit a metric or meet a manager’s expectation. Whether I’m learning a new skill like playing guitar or improvising a new meal in the kitchen, I always return to work feeling just a little more confident in my ability to tackle whatever new challenges come my way.
Hobbies promote out-of-the-box thinking
Hobbies require creative problem solving, and they flex a part of your brain that would otherwise stay dormant during routine work days. For example, research has found that activities like dancing, making music, and theater all strengthen the brain’s executive function. Strategic pastimes like chess can even improve neuroplasticity, helping your brain build new, flexible connections that support clearer, more creative thinking at work.
