Why an identity outside work requires healthy friction

Two years ago, I wrote an article on “How to separate your identity from your social impact work” (link). And while the four recommendations in that article still stand, I missed a crucial piece of the puzzle regarding hobbies and activities outside of work.

What I understand differently now is that hobbies don’t become identity-forming on their own. For these activities/hobbies to claim part of our identity (and balance our work identities), they need one thing:

Healthy friction.

By healthy friction, I don’t mean making hobbies stressful or turning them into another performance project. I mean the commitment, inconvenience, and accountability that make an activity matter enough to shape how you see yourself.

Let me back up to explain.

What rowing taught me about non-work identity

I’m a rower. I don’t say “I row” or “I go rowing” - I start with the statement “I am”, an indication of whether we are identifying with it as part of our core identity.

Rowing is part of my identity now. When new people I meet ask me, “What do you do?”, it’s much easier for me to tell them about all my rowing adventures first, before I go to work. It made talking about stuff outside work so much easier.

Last summer, I took a beginner's rowing course. I had never rowed, but I suddenly found myself living near a river and became interested in taking up rowing. The beginnings were painful. We (a group of four or eight beginners in one boat) were flailing about like new chicks taking their first attempt at flying. It wasn’t a pretty sight nor a satisfactory experience.

I set a deadline for myself to commit to learning the sport rather than giving up in frustration. Until Christmas, I said. Then until the four-day rowing camp. At the rowing camp, we suddenly were able to row 10 km as a crew with good technique. I suddenly found myself loving it. I was committed. I was a rower.

For years, I have been swimming regularly. I did CrossFit for over 10 years. But never was my identity so tied to either of those sports.

And that’s because there was no interpersonal friction involved. I can decide to go swimming anytime; I can cancel my swimming session last minute without having to negotiate it with anyone. Yes, if I agree to go with a friend, I might have to deal with a little disappointment, but in the big scheme of things, my friend might still go swimming. She can still go swimming without me.

Not so if I’m one of 9 people required in a rowing boat.

In rowing, you join a club squad. You have teammates. You have interpersonal dynamics to navigate. You negotiate. You compromise. You must fit around the club and/or your squad’s calendar and might have to put personal plans second.

Rowing is a sport full of stuff that creates friction with your other life areas. And that friction asks something of you - whether it is to negotiate your time, resources or self around other people and the sport. And that, in turn, forms your identity as someone linked to the sport.

Similarly, my partner considers himself a musician since forming his own band. He didn’t consider himself a musician before that, even though he played the same guitars and the same songs at home. But he does now because he coordinates band rehearsals with three other people. They plan gigs. They negotiate the set list. They work through interpersonal tensions. They practice a piece of music until it's good enough to be played at a gig.

I think this is also why parenting can become an identity so quickly. I have not known any of my parenting friends who haven't said aloud at least once, “I hope I’m doing this right,” or “I hope I’m a good parent.” That is friction. Your way of being, behaviours, habits, etc., are coming up against another individual (your child), and maybe also against your partner (who might have a different parenting style). The stakes are obviously different to having a hobby! But the way the identity builds through healthy friction feels similar.

In rowing, it's the same, just with a group of people.

Why does work claim so much of our identity?

Besides all the arguments I made about why we are so attached to work, I think friction is another reason.

The workplace is prime real estate for friction in action. Demands are placed on us that constantly test us and ask of our time (commitment), our resource investment, and our relationships.

It’s no wonder work can take up so much of people's identity space; for many, it demands the most time, energy, negotiation, and self-management.

Four kinds of healthy friction to look for in a hobby

If you want your hobbies to compete with your career for a piece of your identity, you need to introduce some healthy friction.

From my experience rowing, I can see four friction areas that you might think about:

Friction on your time

When a hobby is completely flexible, it’s the first thing we drop when work gets busy or we feel tired. Rowing creates a massive time friction. The weekend water sessions are a hard, non-negotiable boundary. This works because it forces you to plan your work and life around your hobby, rather than squeezing the hobby into the leftovers of your workday.

Friction on your resources

We naturally pay more attention to things we have "skin in the game" for. When we invest heavily in something, our brain tries to justify that cost by increasing its importance in our lives. In rowing, these might include costs for team gear, the rowing camp, rowing association and club membership fees, etc. Seeing that gear or seeing that charge forces you to confront the question: "Am I someone who lets this go to waste, or am I a rower?"

We all know the gym membership effect, where we join in January but stop going by February. I do think that friction on resources cannot be the only friction present for this to work.

Friction in your relationships

This is big in rowing. My absence can directly impact other people; the social friction of skipping outweighs the friction of showing up. In a solo hobby, you only disappoint yourself if you skip. In an interdependent hobby, skipping means letting the team down.

Friction on your ego

Rowing was a big test of my beginner’s mindset. I had months of feeling unconsciously incompetent, then consciously incompetent. That created significant psychological friction - and many discussions with my partner about wanting to quit. But over time, as I improved, I also developed a strong sense of pride and ownership in my rowing skills.

Maybe this is the IKEA effect, where you’re more invested when you have built something from scratch than when you buy it ready-made.

Healthy friction is not making your hobby a performance KPI

We often look for hobbies that are easy, flexible, and completely frictionless because we are already so tired from work. I get it.

You might read this and think I’m mad for suggesting you take up a hobby that demands something of you.

I’m not suggesting you should make your hobby work. If you’re anywhere near a type A, high-achieving, or perfectionist person, I can relate to wanting to give your best. I mean, it’s quite easy in rowing to compare your split time (the time it takes you to row 500 metres) to peers and add more training to improve it. You can do that from a healthy standpoint of wanting to improve, or you can go down the unhealthy version of “needing to be the best”.

This article is not about inviting any sort of pressure into your hobbies. It’s about finding something you enjoy for joy and fun while allowing some friction to be present and negotiating it into your life in the way it works best.

How to invite healthy friction into your life outside work

We invite healthy friction by making our hobbies/activities outside of work matter more.

That might mean choosing an activity that happens at a fixed time, rather than whenever you feel like it. It might mean joining a group, signing up for a course, or practising towards a small event.

It might also mean staying with the uncomfortable beginner phase for longer than you usually would. Long enough for the activity to stop feeling like something you’re trying and start feeling like something you belong to.

Or it might mean finding someone or a group of people who notice whether you show up. I think interpersonal friction is probably the most important element. I don’t have any scientific proof, but because humans are social animals, I can see that interpersonal friction has the biggest effect on us. Of the four areas of friction in my rowing case, I think the interpersonal one has the greatest impact.

Start small. Ask: what would make this just committed enough that I have to negotiate with myself, my time, or other people to keep doing it?

Over to you:

Have you experienced this in your own life?

What is your “rowing” equivalent, i.e. an activity that asks enough of you that it has started to shape how you see yourself?

Are your outside-of-work activities so flexible that they require zero commitment, compromise or accountability?

What is one way you can invite a healthy dose of friction into your free time this month?

I'd like to hear your reflections, challenges, and comments.