You know who’s gonna give you everything? Yourself
DISCLAIMER:
You may not always have the privilege to choose your time alone but you can always choose how you’re gonna spend it. You can just sit and get bored or spend your alone time with a purpose and make the most of it.
Alone Time With A Purpose
How much time a day do you spend alone? Hard to say? Try to count the hours you spend commuting to work, doing your groceries, eating your lunch, scrolling through social media, preparing to go outside, watching tv in the evening and any other thing you do completely alone. Then try to calculate the average of time you spend alone per week. Let me guess, you didn’t even know that you spend so much time alone. I didn’t realize it either until my best friend asked me this question. When I realized that on an average day I spend about 11 hours (self-employed laptop lifestyle) alone it just blew my mind.
But the truth is that even if you work the traditional Mon-Fri 9-5 day (there’s nothing wrong with that!) you still spend some time alone. Which basically means that at least, let’s say 3-4 hours per day (the hours of sleep do not count) you spend with your best friend! YEY!!
But if you can hardly call yourself your BFF spending alone time with a purpose will definitely help you to change it!
If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone
Friend or Foe?
But before getting into the details on how you can spend alone time with a purpose let’s focus on the relationship you have with yourself. How would you describe it? Are you your best friend or your worst enemy? What goes through your mind when you struggle to achieve your goal? Do you support and encourage yourself or you beat yourself up for not getting immediately what you’re working for? If you chose the second option it means that you are your harshest critic. BUT don’t worry. You can easily become your own cheerleader. All you have to do is to spend some quality time alone with the purpose of creating a strong and healthy relationship with yourself.
Have you ever thought how much time and effort you put into creating relationships with others completely forgetting to build a healthy relationship with yourself? That’s insane, right? The only person you spend your whole life with is YOU so it’s time to focus on this relationship. So instead of wasting your “me time” on things that don’t really matter learn to indulge in your solitude. Teach yourself how to spend alone time with a purpose.
The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself
It’s time you build a relationship with yourself you could be proud of! You owe it to yourself!
You can spend a productive time ALONE and actually enjoy it. And here is how you can easily do it!
Let’s get started!
Download Your FREE Printable Worksheets on Self-Discovery & Finding Life Purpose!
1. Self-Reflection
Self-reflection is an essential key to success in achieving your goals and creating the life you want to have. It is a powerful tool, the best you can find to discover your true self and increase and self-awareness. And we all need these two ingredients to make our life meaningful and purposeful. Of course, life without purpose is still livable but it’s not interesting, satisfying or fulfilling. Not to mention that it can easily make you depressed. Because if there is nothing that drives you to keep going through life what’s the point of getting out of bed in the morning? It’s like eating a tasteless and unappetizing dish – it may satisfy your hunger but it will not give you this incredible experience that only a delicious home-made food can give you.
Self-reflection is just like adding these fresh, high-quality ingredients to your meal. You can eat for pleasure, not hunger. You can live your life with a purpose not just “drifting” through it. All depends on you. If you’re ready to take the journey of self-reflection just stand in front of the mirror of your life and explore your consciousness. Take time to delve deeper into yourself. Ask yourself what you need in your life to make it healthy, tasteful and delicious and start adding fresh, high-quality and nutrient-dense ingredients.
Make your life a pleasurable experience.
Simple ways to practice self-reflection:
- Keep a Daily Journal – Journaling is a powerful tool to understand your emotions, get rid of intrusive thoughts, gain clarity about your life purpose and goals
- Talk to yourself out loud (no, it’s not crazy and yes, it’s empowering!)
- Do a quick breathing exercise to calm your mind
- Focus on your past and ask yourself: What did you learn from the past experience of your life?
2. Educate Yourself
Another great way to make the most of “me time” is to dedicate it to self-education. Investing in self-education it’s the best investment you can make because your whole future depends on it. We tend to think that there will be plenty of time for that but the time is now. If you want to succeed you need to invest in your self-development and personal growth right now. The power of the mind is limitless and if you think otherwise, then you’re must be setting your own limitations in our mind. It’s your low self-esteem and lack of confidence that make you believe in this bulls*t. The truth is that you’re worth more than you think and your experience is far richer than you can ever imagine. You’re definitely capable of so much more than you even realize. BUT to be able to reach your full potential you need to invest in your personal growth and self-development otherwise you will be wasting your time and energy doing the wrong things. It’s time to evict your self-limiting beliefs from your mind and commit to conscious growth. Put all your mental performance into something productive, creative and inspiring. Use your concentration to explore your personal growth. Cultivate the growth mindset and train your brain to get smarter every day!
- Cultivate growth mindset
- Commit to a conscious growth
- Shape your perspective
- Be open-minded
- Gain inspiration
3. Practice Positive Thinking
Everything begins with a positive mental attitude. If you want to reach your full potential and achieve something great you need to put yourself in a positive headspace first. But there is one thing you should know first, maintaining a positive attitude does not mean having a giant smile plastered on your face and radiate positive energy and extremely good vibes ALL the time. Staying positive is more about surrounding yourself with positive energy, believe in yourself because you are capable of anything you just have to trust in your abilities, skills, and talents. How can you achieve this state? Well, the answer is always the same - By practice! Everyone is different and has a different background. Life isn’t always fair and that’s the fact. We do not start in the same place BUT no matter how many obstacles you find on our path, how many times you fall (literally and figuratively) you can ALWAYS achieve your goals. The core components of the success (in my opinion) are conscientiousness, focus, patience, and hard work. So stop comparing yourself to others because you DON’T lack anything! Everything you need you to have inside of you.
Happiness doesn’t mean that everything is perfect and flawless, it means that you are able to embrace imperfections of the present moment and find the beauty in the small things. In other words, the key to success is to set “realistic expectations” and become more flexible with your life. So instead of feeding your ego, nourish your soul. Because the beauty of life is often found when we give up control and soften our expectations. This pursuit of pure perfection and this obsession of self-fulfillment can only lead to disappointment and depression. Of course, I’m not encouraging you to set low expectations and being content with very little. What I am saying is that you should give yourself a bit of credit and learn to live fully in the present moment. Remember that the present moment it’s all you really have.
Posts about Healthy Lifestyle & Positive Mindset:
- Put Yourself in a Positive Headspace HERE
- 44 Essential Rules for a Happy Life HERE
- Listen to your Gut Instinct ALWAYS HERE
- 8 Powerful Habits for Balance in your Daily Life HERE
- Let’s Cultivate “Il Dolce Far Niente” HERE
- Simple Ways to Live a more Holistic Lifestyle HERE
- Unlock Your Creative Potential HERE
4. Rest & Relaxation
Fitting relaxation in a busy schedule can be quite challenging but it’s crucial for maintaining your physical health and emotional wellbeing. Unfortunately, the type of culture we live in does not make it easier for us. We are trained to be extremely productive and if we’re not it means that we’re lazy. And correct me if I am wrong but for people who work really hard to achieve their goals being called “lazy” is probably the worst insult they can ever hear. So if you think that if you’re not busy you’re just wasting your time – it’s NOT true. Because in order to be inspired, motivated and productive we all need to rest, relax and recharge our batteries on a daily basis. And that’s the fact.
But hey, I’m not encouraging you to spend your day off in front of the tv, watching some senseless tv show and indulging in mindless snacking. I bet you don’t want to be a couch potato, right?
But if you use your “me time” to relax on purpose you will create a rare win-win situation. Sounds great, right?
So basically you won’t be insanely productive but at the same time, you won’t be procrastinating. So take a mental vacation and relax on purpose.
5. Solo Date
Well, let’s make it clear. Single or in a relationship you should go on a date with yourself. I’m serious. Strange as it may seem but self-dating is incredibly beneficial for your mental and physical wellbeing. Because it helps you to increase your self-awareness and boost your self-confidence.
Self-dating is about creating and strengthening your relationship with yourself. It’s about finding time to feed your passion, cultivate self-care, indulge in a mindful relaxation and doing all these fun and exciting stuff you truly love but you don’t have time for.
Self-dating is all about giving yourself a little love and enjoying your own company (no, not that way… although technically you can do whatever you want!) But seriously when you’re going for a date you want to have a good time, eat a delicious meal, have a glass of some good wine, watch a movie, have an interesting conversation. Am I right? Dating yourself means exactly the same. It’s all about doing something fun, active, creative, crazy or relaxing. Or all at once. Why limit yourself?! Be creative. Get inspired. Think outside of the box. Take a journey of self-discovery. Find out what is your talent, passion, guilty pleasure and favorite way to relax. Be mindful. Learn to live in the present moment and get as much as you can of it. Just squeeze out every drop of joy. It’s all yours for the taking. Just follow the rule:
Lend yourself to others, but give yourself to yourself
Have you checked my FREE printable workbooks on self-care and prioritizing life?
If not, you can DOWNLOAD your 2 FREE workbooks here, just CLICK on the photos!
6. Self-Care Like a Boss
Another great way to spend your time alone in a productive way is to practice self-care (download your FREE pdf HERE) But don’t just limit yourself to taking a relaxing bath or applying a face mask. Try to address all 5 dimensions of self-care to cover a full spectrum of Mind, Body, and Spirit.
5 dimensions of self-care and ways to address each of them in your “me time”:
- Mental - Revitalize your mental energy
- Practice Mindfulness HERE
- Do mental housekeeping – focus on your mental wellbeing and take care of your mental home
- Create a spa-like home experience
- Learn new skills
- Fuel your passion
- Connect with nature
- Connect with your inner child HERE
- Physical - Celebrate your body
- Treat yourself with delicious food
- Engage yourself in a physical activity
- Go for a mindful walk
- Get quality rest - take a nap
- Spiritual - Nourish your soul
- Try a guided meditation
- Try Hot Yoga session
- Unlock your creative potential HERE
- Practice Gratitude - create a gratitude jar
- Emotional - Boost your positive emotions
- Keep a Journal - write to release your negative emotions and intrusive thoughts
- Engage in positive self-talk (try the mirror technique)
- Do a quick breathing exercise
- Get some therapy session
- Talk to someone you can trust
- Social - Treat yourself
- Spend quality time with family and friends (prepare Netflix & Chill kinda evening)
- Challenge yourself and take a step outside your comfort zone (“Outside of your comfort zone is where the magic happens.”)
- Engage yourself in positive & pleasurable social situations - go to the theatre, start a new group course, yoga course, organize friend & family dinner
- Find a new favorite coffee shop and restaurant in your city
- Go for a one day trip with your friends and spend quality time outdoors.
Stay Positive
Be Mindful
And Spend Your “Me Time” with a Purpose
xo Kate
2 thoughts on “Time Alone With A Purpose - Best Ways to Make the Most Of “Me Time”.”
I have a solo date every Friday night to wherever I have a coupon for a meal. I haven’t had a real date in over a year, so I have to take what I can get.
I love that! Eating out alone it’s definitely one of my favorite solo date ideas! I call this: Me, myself and I in the company of delicious food! It’s a wonderful opportunity to spend some quality “me time”, practice mindful eating and boost your self-confidence. And you know what’s even better? That you’re spending your Friday night in the best company - your own!! And you even got a coupon for a meal… I’m so jealous!! Take care and have a wonderful Friday night!