So often we are so consumed by everyone else’s need but yourself, this article outlines the importance of putting alone time at the top of your everyday priority list. Achieving your goals, making space for all kinds of good stuff to come in, and taking focused action on what’s most important requires significant amounts of alone time. It’s only when you create space for solitude that you can reflect on your own inner desires, set new goals, and discover your courage to pursue personal dreams.
This is a great article I came across on AnnetteColby.com on reasons why it’s important you need to spend time alone. Not everyone needs hours of time alone, but everyone needs his or her own personal balance between engagement with the world and engagement with self. Here are five indisputable reasons to end perpetual busyness and make no excuses for privacy and solitude. Below are 5 reasons Annette suggest on why you need to spend time alone.
1. Time to Rediscover Self and Reevaluate Priorities
People often want to accomplish big important things in their personal lives…like achieving a fit and healthy body, overcoming an addiction, writing a first novel, or beginning a new self-based business. But one of the top reasons that stops them from achieving their goals is an inability to put themselves as a number one priority in their everyday lives. Deciding to spend time alone each day is an important step toward recognizing the value of putting self as a priority.
2. Bring Back Your Lust for Life
You may be wildly busy in your life, but are you joyfully taking action on your most important dreams? It’s easy to push your personal goals to the back burner and think you’ll get to them tomorrow, next week, or next year. Unfortunately tomorrow never gets here. Each day becomes a repeat of the previous day. Living in a repetitive rut results in boredom and diminishing joy.
3. Time to Breathe and Release Stress Levels
Stress happens when we believe that we do not have the time, experiences, or resources to deal with a challenge or situation. Feeling pressured and anxious about a perceived unsolvable or impossible situation, our bodies release adrenaline and gear up for a fight or flight response to handle the immediate danger. Taking a few minutes of alone time to breathe and calm down helps bring new perspective that while the situation at hand may be undesirable, it is not a life or death situation.
4. Be With Your Own Feelings
Taking time alone creates space to relax, clear out the world, and be with no one else’s feelings but your own. By stepping away from all the outside noise and busyness, you allow new opportunity to clear confusion and sort out your emotions and feelings. Once our head is clear, you can take the time to explore what you truly believe.
5. Be Independent
A person who leads a self-reliant life is able to think for him or herself rather than meekly accepting other people’s ideas. When you’re relaxing by yourself it’s much easier to enjoy some self-reflection, be true to your own private heart, more independent, and more in control of your personal choices. Increasing your alone time can lead to an empowered ability to trust yourself, trust personal intuition, make decisions for yourself, and be confident in your own ability.
