Build Resilience by Being Alone
“You need to spend more time by yourself”, a friend of mine told me when I was about 21 or 22 years old. My workmate at the time (let’s call her KJ) was roughly ten years older than me. I met her at my first ever sales job. I really looked up to her, still do.
KJ caught your attention right away with her big blue smiling eyes, long lashes and very blond Barbie doll hair. She was always dressed to the nines in heels and short skirts. KJ always spoke with confidence and demanded respect though she was quite witty and had a raunchy sense of humor at times. She was not afraid to be a bit flirty with clients and knew that she was good at her job. KJ was an independent & established woman who lived on her own in a very modern townhome that she remodeled herself. Not only was she self-sufficient, but she was also extremely capable of anything she set out to do. That was very clear just by how she carried herself.
“You need to be comfortable going out by yourself. Try going to the movies alone,” she continued to lecture me. KJ was essentially telling me that I relied too much on what other people were doing and lacked the certainty in myself to do what I wanted to do (with or without another person in tow).
I completely get what she was telling me now; now that I’ve grown from a young twenty-something to a forty-something wife & a mother of two grown children. KJ’s advice maybe came across a bit rough at the time because she said it in a very serious and mothering way. But it really stuck with me making a lasting impression. I am not sure that I took immediate action on her advice but started to dabble in getting uncomfortable being by myself. For example, I remember a few months after that conversation with KJ there was a wedding I was invited to. So, I did not ask a date. I went solo. It took courage and felt strange at first, but it pushed me to have conversations with different people and make new connections which ended in a very positive experience.
Fast forward five years or more… As my career in sales grew, I traveled quite a bit alone. I flew alone, ate at restaurants alone, stayed in hotels alone, went on walks & runs in whatever city was my destination alone… And I thought about KJ’s intelligent guidance to that girl in her young twenties quite often. Even though I traveled alone: it was still intimidating asking for a table for one at a restaurant, ordering a glass of wine and eating chicken parmesan all by yourself. But over the years, I have learned to love my time being alone. Being by myself has been therapeutic and has made me very comfortable in who I am as a person. I have realized that being by myself is totally okay. It gives me time to think, to read a book or journal my thoughts & ideas.
Being alone does not mean I am lonely. There is a BIG difference. I have family and friends who I spend adequate amounts of time with. After all, relationships are a healthy part of life and very necessary for a person’s social wellbeing. But learning to be alone has provided me with the confidence to go against the grain sometimes. It has given me permission to not follow the crowd because it is the popular thing to do. And it has given me the power to stand up for what I believe in and be who I genuinely am as a human being.
Being alone builds resilience in so many ways. When you are by yourself you are 100% in charge of the decisions you make and the directions you are going. You develop abilities you may never know you had.
Six really great things that being alone can do for you:
1. Helps you expand the confidence in yourself.
2. Keeps you from comparing yourself to others.
3. Enables you to be observant and soak in your surroundings.
4. Allows you time to find gratitude.
5. Develops creativity.
6. Offers you the bandwidth to think about and plan for the future.
So, take yourself out on a date. Enjoy a glass of wine at your favorite restaurant and observe the people, appreciate your surroundings. Hit a local coffee shop and read a book. Visit a public park and get a good workout in. Who cares what other people might think. Be confident to “do you” without any followers for support. Be comfortable being with just you.
I wish KJ & I were geographically closer. Someday, maybe we will be. I really did love her company and appreciated our deep conversations. She was and still is a great teacher.
