To sustain your focus on achieving long-term goals, balance is essential. The evidence suggests that a healthy amount of hobbies and vacations increases your resilience, making you more likely to succeed.
If your goals in life require hard work to reach them, ensuring that you actively schedule downtime into your plans is essential to sustaining your energy over time. As you focus on what you want to achieve, don’t make the mistake of neglecting yourself, your family and friends, and the leisure activities you enjoy. A substantial amount of research suggests that a good use of free time makes a significant difference in how healthy you are, both mentally and physically.
What counts as leisure?
Is it leisure time when you just don’t happen to be working? That’s one way to view it; psychologists call this the residual definition of leisure—something that, in a pressured economy, is not always in abundant supply. This is one reason why so many of us are anxious to succeed on our own terms: if we have to work this hard, we’d like to enjoy it.
But there are other ways to categorize the things we do with our time off: some researchers distinguish between active and passive leisure, and others between serious and unserious leisure. There is a difference between watching television and playing tennis or joining an art group: some pastimes allow us to switch off, while others require more engagement. On the whole, the research indicates that we benefit most when we participate in leisure that gets us actively involved. We all need a rest sometimes, but active pursuits can have further benefits as well: they give us a sense of achievement and mastery, which boosts our mood.
Leisure can encompass a wide range of activities; the key element is what psychologists sum up as “perceived freedom”—which is to say, whether tranquil and relaxed or active and exciting, it feels like a rest because the choice is yours.
the benefits of leisure
Leisure time is not just fun—it can be therapeutic, too. American psychologist Linda Caldwell identifies a number of ways in which leisure helps us, by:
- Being meaningful or interesting to us, and perhaps providing a good personal challenge.
- Putting us in touch with social support and friendships.
- Increasing our sense of self-efficacy and competence.
- Giving us a sense of personal control and choice.
- Helping us relax or forget our daily troubles.
These elements support our mental health, which means that when we get back to focusing on our goals, we’re better able to stick at them. Recreation makes you more stable and well-adjusted, so enjoy it with a clear conscience—and be mindful about what you do with your leisure time, to make sure it gives you the energy to keep moving forward.
All the world loves…
A 2013 study across 33 countries found that certain activities proved universally good at boosting happiness. The researchers found that people were most fulfilled by activities that either helped them be the person they were, or strengthened their relationships with others. The top choices were:
compelling experiences
Most of us watch films and TV, read books, listen to the radio, and play games in our time off—but what do we get out of it? One theory, based on video games but applicable to other cultural forms, was proposed in 2004 by American researchers Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek. They argued that there are eight ways of enjoying something, and that we find certain experiences compelling for different reasons. Why do you enjoy your favorite pastimes? Your answers may give you some interesting insights:
- Discovery. Exploring new territory.
- Sensation. Enjoying a spectacle or the mechanics of the gameplay.
- Fantasy. Make-believe; the joy of stepping into someone else’s shoes.
- Narrative. The pleasure of following a story.
- Challenge. The satisfaction of overcoming obstacles.
- Fellowship. The fun of playing with others.
- Expression. Self-discovery and identity.
- Submission/abnegation. Sitting back and switching off.