FIND YOUR NEW FAVORITE HOBBY

Have more fun. Learn new things. These aren't bad New Year's resolutions! Here's how to get started.

- Angela Haupt

Kate Hanselman's home is a shrine to hobbies past and present. Fencing gear sits beside multiple pairs of rockclimbing shoes.

"I find yarn everywhere because I love knitting, and I have a whole set of embroidery stuff," she says. Plus: stacks of puzzles, her partner's golf clubs, and equipment from his flying lessons.

"Our house is like a full hobby station," she says with a laugh.

Challenging, fun and engaging hobbies have the power to make us happier and healthier, says Hanselman, a nurse practitioner with the counseling practice Thriveworks. Such pursuits help us grow in creative, physical and intellectual ways, and can boost self-esteem.

Plus, they often foster connection with others. Hobbies lead to better physical health, more sleep, lower stress, greater life satisfaction, a larger social network and improved work performance.

"Hobbies live in the pleasure world, not necessarily the mastery world," Hanselman says. "We're not trying to impress the board, we're not going for a paycheck, there's no ulterior motive.

Hobbies are like dessert-and as a baker myself, dessert is the most important part." That resonates with Chris Johnson, recreational woodworker, motorcyclist, gardener, cook and runner. He has accepted that he'll never be a master surfer, but that doesn't dampen his enjoyment of riding waves. And he's so taken with beekeeping that his backyard is now home to 20,000 honeybees.

"I really love learning and figuring things out, and developing an understanding of how things tick," says Johnson, of Carolina Beach, North Carolina.

His hobbies tend to evolve out of curiosity, boredom or need. Take the bees: After moving into a new home with a barren yard, he was concerned about a lack of pollinators, so he planted a garden and became a beekeeper.