Rediscovering Your Interests When You Can't Remember What You Enjoy

WRITTEN BY AMBER ROBINSON

There's a particular kind of emptiness that comes with realizing you can't remember what you enjoy anymore. Someone asks what you do for fun, and you draw a blank. You scroll through streaming services feeling nothing. Weekends stretch ahead with no pull toward any particular activity. If this resonates with you, I want you to know something important: this experience is more common than you might think, and it doesn't mean something is permanently broken.

Why Do We Lose Touch With Our Interests?

Before we explore how to rediscover your interests, it's helpful to understand why this happens. In my practice, I see this pattern emerge for several reasons:

Depression can literally dampen your ability to feel pleasure or interest in activities you once loved. This isn't a character flaw—it's a symptom of a treatable condition.

Chronic stress and burnout consume so much mental energy that there's nothing left for curiosity or enjoyment. When you're in survival mode, your brain deprioritizes pleasure.

Life transitions like becoming a parent, changing careers, or going through a breakup can disconnect you from your former identity and the interests tied to it.

Long-term caregiving or putting others first can cause you to lose track of your own preferences entirely. You've been so focused on others' needs that your own desires have gone dormant.

The good news? Your capacity for interest and enjoyment isn't gone—it's just buried. Let's talk about how to excavate it.

Start With Curiosity, Not Pressure

Here's where most people go wrong: they put enormous pressure on themselves to immediately feel passionate about something. That's not how rediscovering interests works.

Instead, I encourage my clients to adopt what I call "gentle exploration." You're not looking for your life's purpose or your next obsession. You're simply noticing what creates the smallest spark of curiosity or what feels slightly less draining than other options.

Ask yourself: "What sounds even 1% more interesting than doing nothing?" That low bar is intentional. We're rebuilding your relationship with enjoyment from the ground up.

Review Your Past (Without Living There)

Your history holds clues, even if those interests no longer fit your current life. Try this exercise:

Think back to different life phases—childhood, adolescence, your twenties. What did you gravitate toward? Don't focus on whether you were "good" at these things or whether they led anywhere. Just notice the activities that absorbed your attention.

Look for themes rather than specific activities. Maybe you loved building with Legos, later enjoyed coding, and recently found yourself watching home renovation videos. The theme might be "creating systems" or "problem-solving with tangible results." That theme can point you toward new interests that fit your current life.

The Breadcrumb Method

When you can't remember what you enjoy, you need a low-stakes way to gather data about your current preferences. I call this the Breadcrumb Method.

Set a timer for 15 minutes and commit to trying something—anything. Read three pages of a book. Watch a tutorial video. Doodle. Walk around your neighborhood. The activity itself matters less than the practice of sampling.

Notice your resistance patterns. Did you avoid certain activities? That's information. Sometimes what we avoid points to where we've been hurt or disappointed before.

Track tiny responses. You're not looking for joy or passion yet. You're looking for: Did time pass slightly faster? Did you feel a little less heavy? Did any part of you want to continue? These subtle signals are your breadcrumbs.

Create a "Might Be Interesting" List

Our brains struggle with blank slates. Instead of asking yourself "What do I want to do?" which can feel overwhelming, keep an ongoing list of possibilities.

Whenever you notice even the smallest flicker of interest—maybe you saw someone doing pottery and thought "huh, that's kind of cool," or you heard a podcast about astronomy and didn't immediately zone out—add it to your list. You don't have to act on it. Just capture it.

This list serves two purposes: it trains your brain to notice interest again, and it gives you concrete options when you have energy to explore.

Address the Underlying Issues

Sometimes, the inability to remember what you enjoy is a symptom of something deeper that needs attention:

If you suspect depression, please reach out to us or another mental health professional. Depression is highly treatable, and addressing it can restore your capacity for interest and pleasure. You're not "just" disinterested—you may be experiencing a neurobiological condition that responds to treatment.

If burnout is the culprit, rediscovering interests isn't about adding more to your plate. It might mean establishing boundaries, delegating, or making hard choices about commitments. Sometimes the most important work is clearing space.

If trauma is present, especially complex trauma or childhood trauma, your disconnection from joy might be protective. Working with a trauma-informed therapist can help you safely reconnect with positive experiences.

Experiment With Adjacent Activities

If old interests feel inaccessible, try adjacent activities that share similar qualities but feel fresh:

• Loved team sports but can't commit to a league? Try pickup games, recreational hiking groups, or even cooperative video games

• Miss reading but can't focus? Try audiobooks during walks, graphic novels, or poetry (shorter commitments)

• Used to paint but feel intimidated? Try adult coloring books, photography with your phone, or rearranging your living space

These adjacent activities can reignite dormant neural pathways associated with enjoyment while feeling more manageable in your current state.

Practice "Interest Maintenance"

Once you identify even small interests, they need care to grow. Think of them like plants that need regular watering, not occasional flooding.

Commit to consistency over intensity. Ten minutes of sketching three times a week will serve you better than a four-hour art session once a month when you can't sustain interest.

Lower the bar for engagement. You don't need special equipment, skills, or large time blocks. You need permission to be a beginner and to do things imperfectly.

Protect these moments from productivity culture. Your interest doesn't need to be useful, marketable, or impressive. It just needs to be yours.

Give Yourself Permission to Change

Maybe you're struggling to remember what you enjoy because you've actually changed, and your old interests genuinely don't fit anymore. That's okay. That's growth.

You're allowed to:

• Stop liking things you used to love

• Outgrow identities that no longer serve you

• Discover that your interests were influenced by who you were trying to impress

• Find that your values have shifted and different activities align with who you are now

This isn't loss—it's evolution. The work is discovering what resonates with your current self, not forcing yourself back into an outdated mold.

The Role of Social Connection

Sometimes we lose touch with our interests because we've been experiencing them in isolation. Many interests become more engaging when shared.

Consider parallel play—doing activities alongside others without needing to interact much. Working on your own projects in a coffee shop, joining a study or craft group, or simply being around others who are engaged in their interests can help reignite your own.

Share your rediscovery journey with someone who won't judge or pressure you. Having a friend check in ("Did you try that pottery class?" asked with genuine curiosity, not pressure) can provide gentle accountability.

What If Nothing Feels Interesting?

If you've tried these strategies and still feel persistently disconnected from enjoyment, that's important clinical information. This level of anhedonia warrants professional support.

Please reach out to a therapist or counselor who can help assess whether you're experiencing depression, burnout, or another condition affecting your mood and motivation. There's no shame in needing support—in fact, recognizing when you need help is a sign of self-awareness and strength.

Moving Forward: Small Wins Matter

Rediscovering your interests isn't about having an epiphany or finding your passion overnight. It's about:

• Noticing tiny sparks of curiosity

• Creating small opportunities for exploration

• Being patient with yourself through the process

• Celebrating when 15 minutes of something feels slightly good

• Building trust that you can experience enjoyment again

You haven't permanently lost your capacity for interest and joy. You're in a season where it's harder to access, and that season will shift. In the meantime, be gentle with yourself. Keep putting out breadcrumbs. Keep experimenting. Keep noticing.

The interests will come. Not all at once, not necessarily the ones you expect, but they will come. Your only job right now is to stay curious about the possibility and create small openings for rediscovery.

You're not broken. You're not boring. You're a person who's been through something difficult, and you're doing the brave work of finding your way back to yourself. That work matters, and you matter.

If you're struggling with persistent loss of interest, low mood, or difficulty finding pleasure in activities, please consider reaching out to a mental health professional. These can be symptoms of treatable conditions, and you deserve support.