Guardian Life & Style (US) • Jan. 6, 2026, 11:44 a.m.

Find an appealing activity and stick with it even if you lack skill, says Karen Walrond, author of In Defense of Dabbling Tell us: have you fallen in love this year? All my life I’ve been bad at sports.

At school I was always successfully “sick” on the annual sports day and had a standing note from my equally averse mother to excuse me from physical education classes due to my “bad foot”. Even after I started exercising regularly in my mid-20s, I never joined my friends’ social netball or football teams.

“Hating sports” was core to my identity. Then, last year, a friend invited me to her birthday “kickabout” – a casual game of football, I gathered.

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