Miniature painting and all other aspects of our hobby (building models, conversions, terrain making, gaming) are meant to be our leisure time. Something we do for fun.

But we tend to bring the same habits from our day job to our leisure time. And suddenly the hobby can feel like work.

"I must be productive", "I must not waste my time", "I have to get better at this", "I have to paint all my miniatures", "I have to finish this new army", "I need to be ready for a tournament" "I should build a competitive list", "I have to get to the top 10"...

So, consider this an official permission to be lazy and not give a damn about it.

It is OK to relax, be lazy and have fun with your hobby.

You have the right to do whatever you want with your leisure time. Find a best way for you to unwind, release stress and feel good.

Find what suits you the most. Maybe it's not even the miniature painting hobby — that's OK too. It's OK to read comic books, play videogames, lose yourself in a new Netflix series, watch YouTube clickbaits, or simply lie down on your sofa and do nothing. Without painting any minis this evening.

And if you do paint some miniatures... You have the right to not get better, to buy something and not paint it, to be distracted and deviate into other factions or game systems, and generally do whatever you want with your hobby time.

Let's start with this as a foundation. Because next comes the more trickier part.

While hobby is our leisure time activity, we also want some measurable results in this activity. This is natural. As human beings, we have the need to move towards something, to excel, to achieve.

We love the feeling of a finished unit, a finished tabletop-ready army, or a finished table built for a tournament. And heck yeah, we love to win.

And here it starts to conflict with that "just relax and release stress" attitude.

Because, problem is, we want both:

• We want to relax and release stress. To unwind and detach from the everyday struggles we have. Somehow those little toy soldiers fighting in an imaginary universe do really help with that.
• We want to achieve something. To do something measurable and solid, something we can share with our friends, boast about on social media, and get some support and positive feedback from the community.

We have both of those needs. And it's OK.

Most of the time, you'll hear me speaking about effectiveness, speedpainting, process optimization, hobby management and other cool stuff. Most of my articles are about painting your stuff better and faster. And the LazyPainter Method is basically all about that — read this free PDF if you don't know the method yet:

But today we'll discuss another side of the equation: the balance between being effective and being fulfilled.

This balance between process and result is tricky, and there's no right answer for everybody. You have to find what suits you personally.

This balance might also change from time to time, depending on your needs, level of everyday stress and the state of your life (family, kids, job, health). Sometimes you feel energized and eager to challenge yourself with a new hobby project. Sometimes all you want is a quite game night with good friends.

How does one find this balance? By asking right questions, before stepping blindly into "let's paint this new army for a tournament next month".

So, build a habit of asking yourself:
- What do I want to do at the moment?
- What do I want to achieve in some time perspective?
- Do I have the energy to focus on my goals now, or do I need to relax and rest?

Not the simplest questions of all, I get it. Whether you're asking them with hobby in mind, or in regard to something else. To answer them, you'll need to dig deeper and understand what inner needs fuel your hobby.

The hobby of miniature painting is just one way to fulfill our inner needs. It's not getting the actual painted miniature that motivates us. It's the experience and feelings we get in the process — or as a result. Maybe it's entertainment, or a way to connect with others, or just means to release everyday stress.

Other hobbies and leisure activities also fulfill our needs. That's why miniature painting is at constant competition with videogames, YouTube, Netflix, comic books and that cozy sofa that attracts you after a day of work.

To be more productive in your hobby, and at the same time be more fulfilled and happy, you need to know your own needs.

What feelings and experiences do you seek? Is your hobby doing the job of fulfilling your needs? Is there something else that fulfills them better (and that's why you get "distracted")? Can you adjust your hobby goals and endeavors to better suit your needs?

Now, think about this in terms of Process-Result balance. You might notice, that some of those needs lean toward Process, and some of them towards Result.

If your dominant hobby need is to Relax, you should adjust to 80-90% Process. Develop a laid back attitude, paint a couple of minis you like, then maybe switch to something else.

If your dominant hobby need is to Achieve, you should be more focused on Result. Get organized, optimize your painting process, learn effective techniques.

Create, Engage, Entertain and Tolerate are usually somewhere in between. They require some amount of effort and focus, but at the same time the ability to release and unwind.

Hobby goals are literally anything you're trying to focus on or achieve in your hobby. Finish a model, paint regularly one hour a day, participate in a contest — these are all hobby goals.

When you know what your internal needs are, you're better equipped to set your hobby goals and expectation accordingly. And if your goals are in coherence with your internal needs, you will have much higher chance of accomplishing them.

So to get higher motivation and energy to finish projects, try following these guidelines (I'll give you some examples of thought process for each of those):

Get in the habit of thinking about your needs, and checking whether your hobby goals are in alignment with those. Avoid goals that are not aligned with your needs, and set goals that are aligned — ideally with MULTIPLE needs.

To give you a better idea of applying all this theory into practice, I'll deconstruct some of my personal projects. With those, I almost always had enough motivation and energy to dive into it and bring it to a close. So let's see how they aligned with inner needs, and why this goals were easy to accomplish.

Painting a set of "Silver Tower" was a long-time dream (and BTW, I wrote a thorough analysis of this project in Showcase: Silver Tower).

But apart from that, this was also a project that hit 3 needs at the same time. There was an ambitious goal ("To paint world best complete Silver Tower set" — Achieve), there were a lot of fun experiments and intricate color game (Create), and both my wife and me were excited to play this game (Engage).

One might think that painting contest are mostly about competition and acclaim (Achieve). But, while there's definitely a lot of joy in winning a contest, there's also something even more important. Painting contests help you create connections to people (Engage), get acquainted, or even become known in a certain community.

After winning MayaCast Masterglass, sometimes when I met someone at GenCon and said "Hi, I'm Dmitry", I got "Wait, are you Dmitry who painted THAT Sphinx?"

Participating in White Noise painting contest led to me becoming a guest and even guest host in the podcast, and — most importantly — great new friends across the globe.

I've started this project back in 2015, as a series of gifts to people who influenced my hobby a lot. An example of those would be Magno & Saelig from the recent showcase article.

Of course the main reason for these pieces was the desire to do something special and unique for my friends (Engage). But it was also an opportunity to push myself even further with each consecutive gift (Achieve), experimenting with vignettes, composition, conversions, colors and lighting. And, as a by product, to explore the hobby without any boundaries (Create) of army composition, established color scheme, or even faction to choose from.

At some point in 2018, there were nowhere to play Infinity in Moscow. All Infinity-related LGS were closed for one reason or another. Luckily, a friend of mine opened a small tabletop gaming club, and we made a deal to start Infinity community there.

It was a great team effort, in which I took a role of somebody like an art-director: organized a few terrain-painting days, painted an enormous amount of stuff personally, and also designed all promotional materials (like logo and social media ads).

Despite considerable amount of work, it was one the most memorable and happy hobby experiences of my life. We were doing something cool with friends, contributing to the community (Engage). It was also refreshing and fun to paint some terrain (Entertain), experiment with colors and paint without any boundaries (Create).

At the end of 2019, I felt a bit bored with the same tournaments again and again (mostly the same missions, same pack, same armylist optimization, etc.), and desperately needed a reboot to my hobby.

I was discussing the issue with a friend, and suddenly we came up with an idea of an "Armybox Challenge". We both had one unpainted unassambled army box waiting for it's hour to come (JSA box for him, and Spiral Corps box for myself). So the deal was to assemble it and create a WYSIWYG armylist including all models from the box (adding anything up to standard point size).

And that's how my Spiral Corps got started. And it was so fun and refreshing (Entertain) to play some crazy scenario with a non-optimized list! So much, in fact, that I carried on and painted almost entire faction, taking my time to develop an unusual color scheme and play with freehands (Create).

What's important about these projects is that they all were aligned with my needs, and there were multiple needs fueling me each time.

Finally, let me give you a list of ideas for your hobby goal-setting. Go through it, and notice how these ideas are satisfying different needs.

• Paint one mini you want but not need. Clean your desk from any unfinished stuff, and paint something just for the fun of it.
• Paint something as a display piece, and put it on a shelf.
• Paint a new army starter without the obligation to ever finish (or even play) that army. If you feel that way, maybe play a low-point game with those models.
• Build or paint a terrain piece for yourself (even if it won't bring you to a full table).
• Build or paint some terrain piece for your FLGS (to the benefit of the community).
• Build some crazy conversion just for fun. It can even be from a game system you don't play.
• Paint something as a gift for a friend. Can choose anything any game, any faction, any model, and any color scheme.
• Paint something from a game system you don't play. We all have that game that we likely won't play, but damn, those models are hot... It's OK to paint any of them and just enjoy it.
• Try a technique you've never used before, and take your time to experiment with it on a single miniature.
• Try paints or hobby materials you've never used before. Metallics, inks, washes, pigments, contrast paints — try them on a single miniature.
• Build and paint something for a specific game. A named character for a specific scenario, a terrain piece for a specific encounter. Most likely, you can use this in other games anyway.
• Organize a community event. Game night, painting day, tournament, hobby contest — anything that might interest you.
• Enter a painting contest. Challenge yourself, push your limits, try something new.
• Paint a new model / unit you need for your gaming army.
• Finish a fully-painted army for a tournament. Time for optimization and speed-painting!

Maybe some of those ideas would inspire you to take a brush and paint something. If you feel that way, than sure do it! But what's more important, I invite you to explore you needs with a bit more thought from now on.

Don't set goals that are not aligned with your needs, and set goals that are.