This has nothing to do with OCD I’m curious if anyone gets really obsessed with hobbies and interests but it doesn’t last longer than a few months. I fall in love with shows, hobbies, I get obsessed with online shopping for specific things for hobbies and then I get all this stuff and it sits in my closet or I end up getting rid of it or just not caring anymore. I feel like I shop impulsively and I tell myself I need all these things or I fall in love with an actor and have to watch all their movies.

Yes this is the exact feeling. It because like my reason to live. I just spent 200$ on a guitar- which actually isn’t much in guitar world and I have the big plan or playing as much as I can for a year to see if I can get into it and really learn and now I’m double guessing myself like is this just another empty interest.

https://ibb.co/xF9HWKW First layers in acrylic of a Brooklyn bridge painting for my sister

I’m glad I’m not the only one. I never want to feel like having and interest in things and needing to purchase things is a character flaw. I’m just curious by nature and I get really inspired and creative and when I do it gives me purpose. Goals to move towards and things to look forward to I guess.

@ThreeLittleBirds I think buying stuff feels like a quick way to be involved in an interest and feel like you're moving forwards. I've heard that imagining your future too vividly and feeling good from the fantasy can make your brain feel like you've already gotten the rewards from it and can actually make you less motivated to do the steps to get there (other than that first one of buying supplies etc). Being inspired by stuff isn't a character flaw, I don't think buying for it is a flaw either, it can just be a habit and you can decide how ok with it you are. I'm largely at peace with it- I give a lot away so it isn't wasted per se, but it did help my self esteem when I was able to stop doing it. It used to be makeup as well and I've stopped that completely, I had to disengage from it totally because I was spending way too much. Pieces of it just always felt like the exact thing I needed- until I found a piece I thought was better. I think there's some fear of regret of NOT buying it or of not having the supplies I want at the time when I feel the urge to use it. These days I still get inspired and buy art supplies, but much less. I should probably give myself a rule of not buying something new until I've used the last thing I bought X number of times. But it's difficult when my mind is always jumping from "portraits in oil! This skin tone set of oils would work so well!" to "omg I want to do pour paintings, I need floetrol!" or "GILDING ON EVERYTHING!!!". But yeah, less projecting stuff into the future really helped me. When I was setting big goals, like your one of playing guitar all the time for a year, I'd e.g. buy the guitar and then it gathers dust because I never feel motivated to do it. Now I say to myself that I'll do hobbies I enjoy when I feel like doing them and if it's not all the time, that's fine. For someone painting for the last 3 years, I have hardly done any paintings. But that's ok. I enjoy learning techniques and being able to give them to people and make them happy. I don't need to set myself the task to become Michael Angelo or even a successful artist. If success comes along the way, that'll be nice. But lowering or removing expectations from myself is the only thing which takes the pressure off enough for me to feel ok about doing them. I want to enjoy hobbies, not avoid them. I think that your initial interests are genuine and sometimes you find that they're not really your cup of tea. That's normal. It's genuinely hard to know until we try, but if there's a sustained interest over time in doing it, even before you've tried it, that's a good indicator that it's a keeper. I show my paintings to others when they're unfinished to combat the perfectionism too. And I use the process as a tool to train my self-compassion when I feel I've made a mistake with it (covering up something which was pretty, using a slightly wrong colour which has dried so I can't correct it, poor line placement etc). Same with learning a language, it's a process of continual failure and feelings of incompetence which I think makes it hard to engage with for perfectionists. If you have a lot of pressure on yourself to do something and be or get good at it, it's not fun. I play guitar too and only learn and improve my technique and muscle memory just by my drive to be able to play songs I like. I don't need to meet any arbitrary expectations, I do it for me. Ditto languages- if I don't feel like practicing, I don't do it, I avoid classes and learned Swedish through media I enjoy plus some Duolingo and having conversations. You don't owe it to yourself or anyone else to be good at a hobby, you can def better support yourself with praise and encouragement for your effort than with demands and guilt trips. I guess I'd suggest working with what you've got. Reduce expectations and just try playing that guitar. The start is actually really fun because the learning curve means you go from feeling totally out of your depth to playing simple songs within days, and it gets less clumsy over time just by playing repeatedly. It's not going to be the end of the world if it turns out you don't enjoy it- it happens to the best of us, you could sell the guitar and spend the money on trying a new hobby. And you don't need to be good at it, now or ever. Possible a hobby budget and the delay tactic could help if you're genuinely overspending (not just guilt over feeling like you're fickle), but it just sounds to me like you made a big purchase and are a bit anxious about the potential that you'll regret it. You might regret it, but that wouldn't be a disaster and fear of regret can be a barrier to starting to play at all in case you find out it's not what you hoped for. It's feelings like that which have always caused me to avoid stuff I could enjoy.