It might help you too idk.
For pretty much all my life I thought hobbies had to be creative or at least produce something. E.g. guitar, drawing, photography, creative writing, playing sports, etc.
I think this is the case for many people, we believe that a hobby has to produce something at the end of the process, or teach you something, to count as a hobby.
I also thought that you had to spend a lot of time doing something to count as a hobby, or that you had to be an expert in it. And that you could only have one.
It was while playing a video game that I realized hobbies were something completely different, and the devs didn’t even intend for it lol.
Hobbies are basically anything you like to spend time on. Keeping up with world news, spending time with friends, discovering new things (music, cool places around town).
It can even be more abstract: organizing information (if you like to collect things), becoming more efficient (less time spent on one task), solving math problems… even daydreaming might be a hobby.
I think a hobby is more accurately defined as something you do during your leisure time somewhat regularly. It doesn’t need to be your whole thing, it doesn’t need to be something you intend to become great at, and it doesn’t need to be something that you’ve done since childhood and will do until you die. It might not even be something you particularly enjoy doing over something else (e.g. daydreaming - I imagine most people do it naturally and don’t really think about it).
I grow chili pepper plants for example in a single pot and I’m starting to consider it a hobby. This hobby is not gardening; it’s taking care of my one chili plant. It’s one of my many hobbies, I’m not going to scale it up (well, maybe just a little bit) or become a gardener, and that’s fine!
Anyway, you might find this useful.
I have definitely been plagued by the “hobby must be productive” mentality. For example, in the context of a video game, framing it around what I’m “accomplishing” within the game, since the game itself is not producing anything. Or in the context of language learning, viewing it as something that needs to show results for it to be worth doing.
I think it ties into a sort of perfectionism for me. But anyway, I agree with you that a hobby does not need to “qualify” as a hobby, for lack of a better word. It can just be a thing that you do. Now as for applying that to my own mind in practice, that’s a whole other question. 😅