The Hobby Rx: Color Me Mine

Quick recap: I'm spending 2026 trying a new hobby every month - not to master it, not to monetize it, just to play. January was puzzles (which taught me about permission to pivot). February? I brought the color back. Literally.

A Palette of Possibilities

After weeks of gray Chicago winter and cozy puzzle sessions, I was craving color. And conveniently, while cleaning out my desk, I found a stack of never-used coloring books I'd either bought or been gifted over the years. Plus the mini coloring book I'd included in my 2025 client mailing campaign that I'd been dabbling with. 

Perfect. No new investment needed. Okay maybe one or two investments made 😉 I pooled together my stash of colored pencils, pens, crayons, and brush-tip markers and dove in.

This was going to be relaxing, meditative, creative. Right?

Shades of Reality

The kaleidoscope coloring book proved to be extremely time-consuming. And while completing a page was partially satisfying, I found it overwhelming trying to coordinate colors into something aesthetically pleasing. I wanted the pages to be perfect. The color matching stress - do I have the right shade? Should this be blue or green? It made coloring feel less like play and more like...work. It pretty much zapped what some people consider therapeutic because I was stuck in a “perfect picture” mindset. As someone who has been called “a detail-oriented thinker” dozens of times in my life, this tracks to be honest and feels very on brand for me.

The mini coloring book from my mailing campaign was better. Those 5-10 minute coloring breaks hit differently. Smaller commitment, lower stakes. And unsurprisingly, given my love for plants and indoor gardening, I gravitated toward botanical-style pages rather than anything too realistic or lifelike.

But here's what surprised me: I had way more fun with the word search book I bought.

Word searches felt practical, resourceful, actually brain-building instead of brain-draining like some of those coloring sessions. It was closer to my reading habits - pattern recognition, searching, solving. The dopamine hit without the perfectionism pressure. I even went back on some of the puzzles to find hidden words not part of the word list, some were quite expressive (and #NSFW) 😳

The Permission Check-In

Not every hobby will spark joy. And that's exactly why I'm exploring them.

With puzzles in January, I learned permission to quit the Disney puzzle that wasn't serving me (And honestly great reminder of a little thing called #FreeWill that we all have. I don’t have to finish something just because I started it!) 

With coloring in February, I learned permission to admit when something feels like work instead of play - even when it's "supposed" to be relaxing. 

Coloring books are marketed as stress relief. But when you're stressing about color coordination and perfection? That's not relief. That's just a different kind of pressure. Turns out my fine motor skills haven't improved much since childhood - staying in the lines can still be a challenge. 

So I'm selling some of the unused coloring books on Facebook Marketplace and replacing them with plant-based ones that actually align with what I enjoy. (And I may have accidentally bought 2 more plant-related puzzles in the process. Permission to lean into what works.)

Highlights

February taught me to distinguish and recognize between 'should be fun' and 'actually is fun for me' - and that discovering that difference is valuable data. I won’t be good at everything I try. The Permission Slip Method isn't just about giving yourself permission to try new things. It's also about giving yourself permission to recognize when something isn't serving you and adjust accordingly.

Word searches > kaleidoscope mandalas? Fine. That's useful information about myself.

Next up: March is taking color to a new dimension - literally. Diamond painting and painting by number, neither of which I've done before. Stay tuned to see if structure helps or if I'm just not a "coloring person."

Reminder: All of my hobby supplies are saved here.