Growing up in Scotland, Sophie Downes was the queen of hobbies. "When I was in primary school, I did every club. On a Thursday, I’d do hockey, highland dancing, and swimming. At one point, I was the school librarian. The more badges I had on my jumper, the cooler I felt."
Today, it's a title she still holds, and her Thursday nights don’t look much different from when she was nine…except she’s now 26, living in London, and working as a designer for Disney. Oh, and she also has an audience of 101k followers on IG and 42k followers on TikTok who watch her journey as she tries out a different activity each month.
But while her childhood was spent trying every club under the sun, Sophie's passions took a hit during her teen years, as so many people's do. Instead of pursuing her love of swimming or experimenting with different sports, she found herself spending more time trying to fit the expectations of what was deemed "interesting" at the time.
"As exams became more important, my hobbies became less [so]," she says now. "Jump to uni and I became very aware of what people thought about me. I didn't want to do anything that was not seen as cool. If you'd asked me what my hobbies were at uni, I would have probably just said the gym and watching YouTube."
This desire to fit in and appear a certain way to her peers followed Sophie when she moved to Stockholm, for her first job after graduation. And while she worked hard on her career, she found herself in that oh-so-familiar pattern of "work, gym, bed" while simultaneously feeling the pressure to "have a plan" every weekend.
If she didn't, she'd panic and feel guilty, she says. "I don't know if that's just a big city thing, but there's always this feeling of, ‘Go, go, go. I must be productive all of the time.' I got swept up in that."
Eventually, she had a lightbulb moment. She moved to London—a childhood dream—and decided to spend more time living the life she wanted, rather than the life she wanted to appear to have. She became dedicated to trying some of the activities the city had to offer.
She shared her intentions on TikTok, in a now-viral video dedicated to making more of her life outside of the 9-to-5. In the year since, Sophie has tried 15 different hobbies: swimming, tennis, dancing, spinning, hot yoga, baking, trampolining/rebound, sewing, boxing, padel, track, musical theatre jazz dancing, pottery painting, traveling solo, and ice skating.
But what has she learned from her hobby journey? Here are Sophie's biggest takeaways:
Other people aren't judging you.
“People care a lot less about you than you think they do, and not in a way that they don't love you or you're not cared for. We think that people are thinking about us all the time, and I’ve realized people just don’t care. There's no point stopping yourself from doing something because of the fear of someone else's opinion.”
You don’t have to be good at a hobby to enjoy it.
“I love swimming. I'm not good at it, but you don't need to be good at something to have fun. It's relaxing. When I swim, I don't know if I'm going fast, I don't know if I swim far, and I have no concept of if I'm any good or not. I just do what feels good."
Having a hobby is good for your mental health.
“If I have a long day at work, I come home, have my dinner, and then go [swimming] before the gym shuts. It’s so good for my head. I shower at the gym, and then go home straight to bed. I sleep so well.”
Forget what people said when you were a child.
“At school, you're taught that if you're not good at something, it's not your thing. If you don't make the team, it's not your thing. If you don't get a good grade, you probably shouldn't do that subject to exam level. I feel like it’s ingrained in your brain, what you should and shouldn't do.
“I had this moment [of realization] when I was trying padel that I played so badly, but I didn't stop laughing the entire time. I realized you're not making money, you’re not chasing the promotion, this is literally fun. Take the stress out of it.”
Not every hobby is going to go well the first time, and that's okay.
“I remember doing boxing in my living room to a video during the pandemic. Well, what I thought was boxing. It turned out it was like boxing to music and I thought, ‘I’m so good at this!' And then I went to an actual boxing class, and it wasn’t fun. It was bootcamp style. I left, and I thought, 'Boxing's not for me.' But then I went back and I actually really liked it. I'm going to try it for a third time and give it a go."
Some activities will surprise you with how much you like them.
“I went to try yoga. I set off for the 7 a.m. class before work. I sat outside the studio, and was still there at five past. This man came out and asked, ‘Is anyone for rebound here?’ and I was like ‘Oh no, I'm here for yoga’ and he said, ‘Yoga is around the corner.’
"I went around and discovered the class had started, so he said, ‘Just come and join my class.’ There were only three people in [the class]. We each had a mini trampoline, and we bounced and bounced and bounced. It was the best and most unexpected discovery.”
Your hobbies don't need to be regimented or structured.
"I get a lot of messages asking, 'Can you help me structure my hobby week?' And I'm like 'No! It's a hobby. It's fun, it doesn't need a structure.' It doesn't need to be that Tuesday nights are [for] swimming and Wednesday nights are [always] dancing.
"If I want to swim one day and then next week I fancy doing padel, I'll do that. I just go with how I feel and try to keep it very flexible. Some hobbies have naturally squished their way into my routine, like swimming and spin, more than, say, rebound."
Hobbies give you more energy.
"When I exercise, I feel more energized than when I don't. When I move in any way, I get a massive endorphin buzz. Sometimes I get home from work and I cannot be bothered to move, but I know I'll come back from the gym and have the zoomies and start running around and be super hyper."
Want to try a new hobby this year? Get your hobby fix here.
Follow Sophie on TikTok @sophied_fit and Instagram @sophied_fit for more hobby inspo.
