My Hobby Year: How Sketching Wildflowers is Teaching Me How to be Bad at Things || More Personal Preview

This episode is a special shortened preview from More Personal, Monica's premium, private, ad-free podcast for the Supporters Club, starting at just $5 a month. Join the HERE TO STAY: 250 SUPPORTERS DRIVE and help ensure About Progress doesn't just make it to its 10 year anniversary this Fall, but make it so it's here to stay. Join the club ⁠HERE⁠. What if the point of hobbies isn't to be good at them? (A novel idea for us recovering perfectionists, I know . . . ) Ever start a hobby with excitement, only to face the harsh reality that you're not good at it? Welcome to my February Hobby Year update. This month I dove into sketching wildflowers, and QUICKLY discovered I'm bad at it. Really bad. But here's the twist: I promised to send these amateur drawings to new Supporters as handmade cards. Cue the inner perfectionist panic. In this episode, I'm sharing what happened when I sat down with my sketch book, why promising these cards to people accidentally turned my hobby into a job, and the permission I had to give myself to be bad at something and share it anyway. Plus: a ballet class update (spoiler: I haven't been back yet), why February was supposed to be my "easy hobby month" (oops!), and my plans to tackle quilting in March. If you've ever struggled to make time for hobbies, felt embarrassed about not being instantly good at something, or wondered if it's okay to enjoy imperfect pursuits—this one's for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices