How do you change a special interest

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How do you replace a special interest completely? Like get rid of the old interest and replace it with something else?

We don't choose our interests; they choose us. When your current one has run its course and is no longer serving you, another one will come along. You can't force it.

I kinda need to force it because its ruining my life, I cant focus on anything due to it, it has basically turned into an obsession.

Sorry to hear it. Is it actually the interest that's ruining things for you, or the amount of time and energy you spend on it? Maybe you just need to learn some time management skills so you can have a life and your special interest, too. Or if it is an interest that is getting you in trouble with other people, you might have to learn not to talk about it so much (but think about it all you like.)

Of course, if you WANT to quit thinking about it and it's bothering you, it might be an obsession. Special interests usually bring us pleasure, not distress.

I've never been able to change a special interest but they definitely cycle for me, they don't stay the same. So I either wait it out for the next one to come along, or as arielhawksquill has mentioned, attempt to manage my time so that I'm not caught up in it too much. Sometimes it's hard to balance school work and my interests and I actually have to time myself and force myself to do schoolwork for an hour, then a 15 minute break, etc.

Although my current special interest is entrepreneurship and it's really helping me start my own business, which I'm almost inclined to pay more attention to than school.

Yeah the interest for the larger part chooses us. I don't even really "like" have the things I've been obsessed with over the years. Actually a lot of them made me totally miserable.

I have "gotten" out of an interest before by breaking the cycle. It was Incredibly hard (like quitting smoking) but I was able to do it. I avoid my triggers as much as I can. If you hate your "obsession" than you absolutely can work t get out of it

With great difficulty.
I have tried at times to force myself to develop a greater interest in a subject and failed miserably.

Agree that the interests choose us rather than the other way around.

How about carefully looking out for other things that may have potential to become a special interest, and then to let one of these interests develop? Don't try to force yourself to stay away from your current special interest. It is better to focus on spending some time developing a second special interest. Simply making the shift in perspective from trying not to attend to your current obsession to trying to learn more about some other topic may help.

I have two special interests. In principle both would have potential to take over my life in a negative way. One interest is of an academic nature and the other is related to physical activity (water sports). I could either end up never leaving my desk and neglect my health (have done that in the past), or I could spend all day out on the water, neglecting my source of income.

What characteristic of your current obsession is creating a negative impact?

Developing my academic interest into the way of making a living has made it productive and not destructive. Reaching this point took many years. I had to give up a boring but very secure source of income, and went through multiple severe financial draughts, but that never held me back.

Does your current obsession hold business/career potential? If not, then perhaps use business/career potential as a criterion when scanning for a potential second special interest.

Last edited by jbw on 07 Feb 2015, 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree that special interests are stronger than we are, but I don't think that means we can't have any control over them. I think they can be changed. Probably the easiest way would be to overlap - find the new interest first and let it displace the old one from your life, though you might simply become a double addict that way. That's how I'd do it. I don't have much success in deliberately taking an interest in a thing, but as long as it's me who has had the idea of taking up the interest, I can sometimes do that. It helps if the new interest-to-be is somehow related to the old one, even if the point of similarity is subtle or symbolic.

I don't really have much special interest stuff going on these days, though they've given me a lot of trouble in the past. I think I gradually noticed the harm they could do, and became so scared of getting sucked into them that I sense when that's likely to happen and back away before I get too involved. It can be a boring life without special interests though. Messing about on the Web seems to be my last remaining one, unless you count quality time with my partner as a special interest - anyway I'm not going to stop that. I'd like a bit more control over my Web wandering though.

It's hard to just tear away from a special interest when it's in full flow - it's hard for me to tear away from anything I've put my mind to, special interest or not - but possible if the motivation is strong enough. I find alarms useful, as a lot of my problem is getting too focussed and failing to monitor the time. Even so, I often find myself ignoring them, they're so annoying, going off at the worst time like they do. And it's often quite hard for me to resume a task after being interrupted, I guess that's part of the reason why I hate interruptions.