What you choose to do in your spare time can say a lot about what you’re like as a professional. Your preferred hobbies reveal some key aspects of your personality, such as how you perform in groups, what types of work environments you thrive in, and how you tackle any project.
Here are 10 fun hobbies you might partake in on your time off and what they say about your professional self.
Hobby #1: Running marathons
What it says about you: You’re determined and enjoy taking on big, lengthy challenges. You know how to pace yourself to avoid burnout and can commit to the practice and repetition needed to succeed at a monumental task. You work best when given an end goal and are allowed to make up your own steps along the way.
Hobby #2: Collecting memorabilia
What it says about you: You know how to sort, organize, and catalog effectively. You’re patient and willing to continue striving towards a goal even when things seem impossibly out of reach. And you’re a master researcher, capable of using a variety of resources to find anything you need.
Hobby #3: Frontman/woman in a band
What it says about you: You’re creative, you work great in groups, and you know how to be the public face of a team. You always have a sense of what your audience wants and you know how to get them excited. And to top it all off, you’ve got that contagious rockstar attitude that really gets others on your team going.
Hobby #4: Creative/artistic baking
What it says about you: You know how to improvise. You can follow a set of instructions from beginning to end and create a quality finished product, but that’s never enough. You add your own flair, style, and personality to everything you create, from the most complex to the most basic project. You take risks and test ideas, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, always learning something new along the way.
Hobby #5: Sports team captain
What it says about you: You’re a natural leader. You know how to analyze strengths and weaknesses to put together an effective squad that takes full advantage of the unique traits of each team member. You understand what makes others tick and how to motivate them to achieve beyond their capabilities.
Hobby #6: Professional/semi-pro video gamer
What it says about you: You have a sharp, quick mind that enables you to put together effective strategies for any situation. You can analyze dozens of variables at once and come up with a proper plan of action in seconds. You know how to specialize in your role while staying dynamic enough to work across any function on a team.
Hobby #7: Computer builder
What it says about you: You know how complex systems interact to create a functioning whole. You can troubleshoot any problem effectively, whether through testing and eliminating variables or through doing intelligent research. And you know that the things you put together with your own two hands are better than anything you can obtain pre-fabricated.
Hobby #8: People watching
What it says about you: You’re observant and know how to judge a book by its cover, but never allow that to be your final judgment. You know exactly how to talk to individuals on their level, and you can easily put together a profile of what they are like based on their body language and actions. You may be naturally a little introverted, but you find it easy to empathize with anyone.
Hobby #9: Novelist
What it says about you: You love to conceptualize and execute on large projects. You’re creative and can tackle a task with vigor and dedication, but you’re always ready to go back and start from scratch when something isn’t working. And you never hesitate to critique your own work. You perform best when given the chance to own a process from beginning to end.
Hobby #10: Investing
What it says about you: You know how to plan and predict outcomes based on your keen observational skills. You seek out, understand, and are willing to take risks, but only when you have enough information to make a calculated leap. You are always well-informed and up to date, but you can also create an automated process that runs itself with only minimal input at important junctures.