The Importance of Alone Time
The ability to sit alone with your own thoughts can be a revealing exercise to see where you are in your development of self-improvement. We are often our harshest critics, or our biggest cheerleader. Having a negative or grandiose view of ourselves can be equally destructive in our personal and relational development.
Alone time is also a test of one's self motivation. You can make it to the gym when you have a partner, but are you making the effort when no one is pushing you? Are you working on a new business venture without needing someone over your shoulder ?
Alone time is important but is your alone time productive or wasted?
Examples of Productive Alone Time:
JOURNALING
As stated in my previous blog, I have a strong belief that journaling is a key aspect to unlocking deep seeded memories, and is an easy way to express yourself in an unflinching manner. It is important to journal during the highs and lows of your life. This could allow some insight into your thought process during these cycles.
SELF REFLECTION
Reflecting on your thoughts and interactions with others honestly. This can often be tough seeing as how we ‘blow things out of proportion’, or struggle to honestly reflect on how our interactions and words can impact others. An honest self reflection and taking inventory of what was said back to us, or others' reactions should be a starting point in this exercise.
QUIET TIME
Quiet time can look like different for each individual, so provide grace for yourself and allow the holistic quiet time as it comes. This could be formal meditation or 5 minutes of silence between tasks at work. Most adults live full busy lives and having quiet time can be hard to come by but just start off small and try your best to build it in your daily routine.
DEFINE PATHWAYS TO FUTURE PLANS
Productive alone time can be reflecting on your past and present, but also mapping out your future. I often hear people say that they lack time in the day to work on their stated goals, but when we all know in reality that distraction, worry, and lack of structure is what is causing this inability to see a task through from start to finish.
Defined time is productived time. Alone time should be scheduled just like any daily activity.
“There are more things likely to frighten us then there are to crush us; We suffer more often in imagination than in reality”- Seneca
Examples of Wasted Alone Time
An obvious category for all of us. Social media, and shuffling around the house is a common waste of time, but there are other ways we waste our precious time.
WORRYING ABOUT THINGS YOU CAN’T CONTROL
Most of our anxieties center around worrying about things either we can not change, or that are dependent on someone else to fix/change. When our wellness is in the hands of others it will create unrest in ourselves.
EXTERNAL VALIDATION
Are you comfortable being alone, or do you yearn for the interaction and validation from others all the time? Do you surround yourself with individuals that are toxic and lack your best interest just so you do not have to be alone? These behaviors are waste of alone time and tend to be non productive for your well being.
FEAR OF MISSING OUT (FOMO)
Fear of missing out has become a term that’s over used, but has great significance to many. This insecurity drives us to partake in activities we don’t really want to do, and be with people that we may not like. Often spurred on by social media (see below) FOMO can be a huge waste of our alone time that could otherwise be far more productive.
SOCIAL MEDIA
An obvious waste of time, and an obvious need for most to greatly reduce the amount of social media we consume. There are many benefits to some of these platforms, but often they are another mechanism to drive insecurity, and separate us from the reality that is our lives. The connections we think we make on social media are not fulfilling and nourishing to our sense of self, and often generate more dissatisfaction in our lives. Social media is a curated picture of what others want us to see or know of them, but when we lack security in ourselves we can believe that everyone is living a life of luxury vs. our lives of misery.
What prevents you from having productive alone time? Is it an endless stream of negative thoughts and feelings? ADHD? Anxiety? Chaos in the home? There are many valid reasons for non-productive alone time, and here is where counselling can be a great first step or a part of your maintenance plan you’ve developed for yourself. Having an outsider help you talk through, or view problems without our need to distort against or in our own favor is a vital tool to have in your personal development.
