We live in a world of constant contact—a place that’s losing sight
of the importance of being alone. Offices are abandoning cubicles in favor of
shared desks and wide-open common spaces, and rather than sitting at their
desks working independently, school children are placed in groups. It seems
that a never-ending “ping” has become our culture’s omnipresent background
noise, instantly informing us of every text, tweet, and notification. Even
something as mundane as cooking dinner has become worthy of social sharing.
One result of all this social connection is that many of us rarely
have any time alone. While we’re told that this connectivity is a good thing
and that being around other people is necessary for a fulfilled life, you can
certainly have too much of a good thing.
“All men’s misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.” –
Jean de la Bruyere
A study of 600 computer programmers
at 92 companies found that while productivity levels were relatively stable
within each company, they varied greatly from one company to the next. The more
productive companies had one thing in common: they ditched the ultra-hip open
office in favor of private work spaces that granted freedom from interruptions.
Of the top performers, 62% said they had adequate privacy at work, while only
19% of the worst performers shared that opinion. And, among the low performers,
76% said they were often unnecessarily interrupted.
Solitude isn’t just a professional plus; it’s also good for
your mental and emotional well-being.
To get the most out of life, you must learn to enjoy spending time alone. The
benefits of solitude are too numerous to catalog, but here are some of the
best.
1. You recuperate and recharge. All of us—even the hopeless
extroverts among us—need time to recuperate and recharge. There’s nothing like
spending time alone to make this happen. The peace, quiet, and mental solitude
you experience when you’re by yourself are essential to recovering from the
stresses of daily living.
2. You can do what you want. As fun as it is to
spend time with other people, it inevitably leads to compromise. You’re
constantly modifying your ideas to accommodate other people’s desires and
opinions. Being alone frees you up to do exactly what you want when you want.
You can throw on whatever you feel like wearing, eat what you feel like eating,
and work on projects that are meaningful to you.
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3. You learn to trust yourself. Freedom is more than
doing what you want; it’s the ability to trust your gut and to think clearly,
without any pressure or outside influence. Being alone helps you form a clear
understanding of who you are, what you know, and what’s right for you. It
teaches you to trust yourself. When around others, even when you don’t realize
it, you monitor people’s reactions in order to gauge the appropriateness of
your own feelings and actions. When you’re alone,
it’s all on you. You develop your own ideas and opinions, without having them
watered down by what anyone else thinks. Once you learn to enjoy being alone,
you’ll discover what you’re truly capable of, without the constraints of other
people’s thinking.
4. It increases your emotional intelligence.Emotional
intelligence (EQ) is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in
yourself and others and your ability to use this awareness to manage your
behavior and relationships. TalentSmart has tested more than a million people
and found that 90% of top performers are high in EQ. Self-awareness is the
foundation of emotional intelligence, and you can’t increase your EQ without
it. Since self-awareness requires understanding your emotions and how you react
to various people and situations, this necessitates careful self-reflection,
and self-reflection happens best when you’re alone.
5. It boosts your self-esteem. Enjoying
your own company is a huge confidence booster. If you’re bored and restless
when you’re by yourself, it’s easy to start thinking that you’re boring
or that you need other people around to enjoy yourself. Learning to enjoy time
alone boosts your self-esteem by confirming that you are enough.
6. You appreciate other people more. Absence
really does make the heart grow fonder. Time alone lets you see people in a
whole new light, and it helps you to develop a renewed sense of gratitude for
who they are and what they do.
7. You get more done. It’s said that “more hands
make light work,” and while that might be true when it comes to raking leaves,
it’s a completely different story with cognitive tasks. Even the effectiveness
of brainstorming is more myth than reality. Researchers from Texas A&M
found that group brainstorming hinders productivity due to “cognitive
fixation.” Cognitive fixation is the tendency for people working in groups to
get stuck on other people’s ideas, reducing their ability to come up with
anything new, and the bigger the group, the more fixated everyone becomes.
Spending time alone not only eliminates distractions but also ensures that you
don’t have trouble with “too many cooks.”
Bringing It All Together
Everyone
benefits from solitude. Take the opportunity this week to spend some time
alone.
What does spending time alone do for you? Please share your
thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you
do from me.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2016/08/16/7-incredible-things-that-happen-once-you-learn-to-enjoy-being-alone/
