Admittedly, I have a very fleeting attention span and I tend to pinball between hobbies and interests in order to fill my time as a stay-at-home Dad. I will go hard in on one interest for months sometimes years and then, without warning, just wake up one day completely bored of it. In fact me collecting Pokémon items as an adult in the first place started as whim that I have put down and picked up at least five different times in my life that I can remember. The last time I took a break I went three years with my collection packed up and never once did Pokémon cross my mind. During that time, I played Hearthstone competitively, got super into coin collecting, collected ever Jakks Pacific UFC figure, got really into VR gaming and even spent a brief stint creating SNES ROM hacks of the game EarthBound (random I know lol)!
Well now I find myself in a similar situation again with Pokémon. I am just not feeling it. I used to spend hours searching every auction site for that one obscure piece that I didn’t even know I wanted. Or spending an entire evening organizing and archiving my recent collection additions. Now I dread the mail because it’s just more work and I haven’t made a new purchase in over a week! I just had to sleeve some Pokemon pogs and it was like pulling teeth getting it done. What gets to me most is the lull in between interests. There is a period of time between hobbies where I have trouble finding things to fill my time while at the same time the normal things that interest me now bore me. It’s a big problem when I have free time to fill.
Anyone here experience this kind of fatigue pretty frequently? How do you guys keep up your enthusiasm for the hobby over the years or any hobby for that matter?
Oh yea and if I go dark for a few years don’t worry lol
Not sure if there’s a way to avoid it in your case given that you’ve been down this road before. Maybe look at completing sets or more niche items? I guess my only piece of “advice” is to not liquidate one hobby to move into another. You might be back in a couple years and kicking yourself for letting things go. Not sure if you’d do that, but I have a tendency towards purging and shifting focus that has come back to haunt me.
Also, maybe dabble in a different part of the franchise. Keeps Pokemon fresh in your mind but you aren’t hyperfocused on one aspect.
@krill, Of course you’re right. It’s just a problem when I have tons of free time and nothing that keeps my interest.
@gott006, Great advice! It’s not that the hobby makes me feel bad all the of the sudden per say, it’s more that I am just not getting that feeling of excitement I used to get. That makes it hard to continue, but the biggest issue is that was I was using to take up my free time.
Oh I don’t plan on selling anything (much to my wife’s dismay). I learned my lesson after selling off my MTG collection. I didn’t even need the money and now the cards would have appreciated in value tremendously.
As far as dabbling in different parts of the franchise, I think that’s what I have been doing. I started collecting just pins and coins. Now I have started collecting: Pogs, Tazos, dice, sleeves, Luggage Tags, Microfiber cloths, damage counter sheets, instruction booklets, and I know I am most likely forgetting something lol. I think I have been starting down so many different venues because I might have saw this coming and I was trying to prolong the inevitable.
I generally am super interested in hobbies for long-ish spans of time. I was (and still am, though Pokemon has mostly superseded it) extremely involved in MTG for the past ~12 years (except for 2 years during my junior and senior years of high school). I’ve been back into collecting Pokemon cards for a year now and I’m not feeling remotely fatigued. And I don’t anticipate becoming fatigued ever, basically. But that’s just my personality. I’m still interested in basically everything I was interested in a decade ago (same music, same TV shows, same academic interests, same hobbies + Pokemon, same everything).
But you probably just have a different personality than me. If you’re feeling fatigued and uninterested in collecting Pokemon cards, you should absolutely take a break. You should never feel obligated to enjoy collecting. You should only collect if you feel a genuine drive to. Life is short – don’t bother doing things that you don’t genuinely enjoy.
I find that having a collecting focus helps to mitigate burnout and balance your energy with other hobbies. I think what bogs people down is having a never-ending rabbit hole of collection additions such that you’re constantly thinking about them and what’s next. Maybe try setting a single goal and set up some alerts so you can check in on it every so often while focusing more on another hobby. Over time something might happen that will bring collecting back into the spotlight and it’ll feel fresh again even though you’ll have still somewhat kept up with it over time.
What works for me is having high-level collection goals that require several weeks/months of saving money. That way I don’t grow tired of weekly purchases coming with the mail, and instead keep every collection addition a special ocurrence every few months.
I will never get bored or sick of collecting. There is so many amazing cards in this hobby! Once I finish one collection goal I proceed to the next. Some of these cards are so expensive it will take months to save up for. (1st edition base, complete gold star collection all in high grades.) I havnt started this goal yet but once I do it will take ages. Currently finishing a huge graded set. Down to last 12 holo’s. I’ve been working on this about three months or so. Binder collecting is a lot easier and also a ton of fun! I had a blast putting together my binder sets! There will always be something to keep me busy. I’ve also been keeping up with modern secret rares or better before Champions Path came out. Pokemon has been really shooting out these new sets once a month to two months which seems kind of quick to me.
Maybe work on improving their print quality before moving onto producing the next set? Their quality control has been horrible sense the beginning. Sure it’s got better over the years. But cards are still coming out of the box damaged. Or horrible off center. It’s almost like they do it on purpose not giving a crap.
Might just be overdoing it within the day. Throw your phone on airplane mode at 8PM or something similar. Make sure that you’re not filling your time with low-quality engagement. Sometimes that can spoil the whole hobby.
But also: don’t force it. Nothing wrong with taking breaks at all.
ADHD/OCD combined type. There is such a thing. I know because I have it. Was diagnosed with that and a few other things lol. Was Surprised to hear of the different diagnosis given to me when I talked to my Dr, but I’m glad I did. Medication does wonders lol. I used to get exactly like you, maybe even worse. From one thing to another and I circle back around eventually. Extreme high…extreme low.
I guess like a lot of these members on here have said and have told me; sometimes you gotta take a little break from whatever it is. Seems to help.
Since I’m not as bad as I used to be; like you are now, I’ve narrowed it down to 3 things. If I get tired of one I switch to the other 2…comics or Michael Jordan cards. and THAT’S IT.
If I go out of that realm, I reel myself back in. I always end up circling back around in a 360…
I made a video on this topic and posted it in both those threads already so I’ll avoid posting it here again.
I’d recommend taking a look at those 2 threads since they cover a lot already!
But in all seriousness, it happens. I once disappeared from the forums for about 2 years if I recall correctly.
Know that your change doesn’t have to be as big as leaving the hobby/forums for an extended period of time. Granted, if you do, know that you will be received with open arms. There are a few, like myself, who have left and come back and it felt more or less like little had changed - people were still interested in what others had to share and sometimes it’s nice seeing new and familiar faces alike. Leaving only to eventually return can give new life to the hobby.
Change your focus a bit, set a schedule or routine where you control the amount of time you spend on the hobby. Your life needs nourishment and sometimes the best way to do that is develop a new hobby, breath new life into an old one, do something planned with friends/family, or just add walks to your schedule so you can re-adjust your perspective.
Burn out happens and we’re experiencing a moment in Pokemon history where it seems like Pokemon is EVERYWHERE. I haven’t seen this much publicity since Pokemon Go, and before that? Back when Pokemon was released to the US. So it’s understandable why burn out is talked about so much more often than before.
At the end of the day, we are humans with human needs. And a lot of the time, we just need some variety, a new focus, or a breath of fresh air.
Or just win the lottery and buy everything you ever dreamed of until the next set/promo/etc. is declared.
I experience some fatigue when buying & chasing cards for the collection. For me it has a lot to do with the ongoing optimization of more and more aspects & niches. In 2020 it got exponentially harder to find cards that got overlooked and to find deals not relative to market value, but in “collector’s value”. It’s not enough anymore to browse for a card once a week at most - you have to adapt to the optimization to compete, and that created stress/anxiety for me & took away the a bit of the fun of the process of buying. When Japan released a cool promo in 2018, it was “nice, maybe when I sell something in a couple of months I’ll pick up a copy or two”. Now, every new release that may not even be as limited brings more potential fomo each time and sometimes the stress outweighs the excitement in the short term.
In the end it’s just increased demand. So, right now, I’m trying to adapt in perspective and expectations first, rather than in optimization. Also don’t get me wrong, this one aspect is not outweighing the fun I have with the hobby.
I actually was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and my wife says that I am super OCD when it comes to my collections especially when it comes to storage. I haven’t been prescribed anything since I was a child and that was Ritalin. My biggest problem is the lull between interests. It’s like having a ton of stuff I COULD do but nothing I WANT to do. It wouldn’t be so much of a problem if I didn’t have so much free time to be honest lol
@zorloth, I wish I had that dedication (and shelf space lol)
@odnihs, I try, but I always find a new rabbit hole to go down. Which was honestly fun. I don’t know why it gets old.
@funmonkey54, Overdoing it is kind of the point with me. I have a pretty good bit of free time in the day and I would go crazy just sitting there watching TV or something. I always need a project or goal, something valid that I can make progress toward in my spare time. When I don’t have something keeping my interest I tend to get frustrated.
@azulryu, Yea if you check my collection page my last break was for three years. I actually just started my collection page and then just *poof* I completely forgot about everything and went on to the next thing. Then COVID happened and I figured “why not check eBay and see the collector pins I missed” cut to now lol
@papafrankgod, My TRUE passion is my wife and children. I am a stay-at-home Dad so I have some spare time and I have to fill it somehow otherwise I’d go nuts.
I experienced fatigue as well, at several points within the last year alone, mostly caused by chasing high value WotC cards and other rare cards I need for the collection. However, with constant price spikes and daily highs, looking for these cards became tedious and stressful, and even if I found a card I was after, most of the time I just couldn’t pull the trigger, for whatever reason.
My solution? Adjust my short-term collection goals. I decided to shift attention to the era most nostalgic and enjoyable for me, and it is far cheaper than WotC. So far its been great - I am genuinely interested in my goals at the moment, and despite being on the cheaper end, they provide a decent challenge as well. I am much, much happier!
Hold up! Is that a symptom of ADHD? That is exactly how I feel and I couldn’t put it in much better terms. I constantly feel stressed even when I’m not doing nothing. I call myself a gamer but I even stopped play games. Because I could do it but I just don’t wanna. There are so many similar things.
