Alone With Your Thoughts

It was said that people have a bigger fear of public speaking than death.

I think that fear has shifted.

We no longer have an issue with speaking to a large audience, as the ease of our digital tools has broken many barriers in that regard. It’s no surprise to see someone taking a video of themselves and posting it online for the world to see.

Instead, the fear today has shifted to being alone with our thoughts.

Asking someone to spend time alone, in solitude, without the companionship of phones, paper or even the white noise of others (aka a coffee shop), strikes terror.

However, this practice is the most important breakthrough for human creativity.

When we learn to be alone with our thoughts, allowing them to simmer and letting our mind wander along with them, we unleash powerful thinking.

Part of the problem is we never learned how to be alone. We’ve never practiced constructive ways to let our minds wander. Hence, when we’re finally alone, our thoughts immediately spiral towards the negative.

This can change if we’re willing to learn.

Sure, there are some where, from a medical standpoint, being alone with their thoughts is actually a detriment.

For the rest of us, we need that time.

We need to learn to be bored and we need to learn how to be alone with our thoughts.