You Will Never Reach Your Best Self, Until You Prioritize This:

Sometimes, I golf by myself.
I show up alone at my favorite local course at half past five, pay the fee, and go. I typically try to get out there before I get paired up with other golfers. The best is when the starter is nowhere to be seen—I rush up to the tee box, swing’n’ping and drive off before another group rolls up.
It’s not what it sounds like. I don’t mind getting paired with other golfers, and when it happens, I usually have a really good time. I actually love golfing with people—I go at least once a week with friends or family.
But there’s something about being alone on the course—something about shutting my phone off for a few hours and concentrating on the motion of my swing, the angle of my shots, the backswing on a chip, the follow through on a putt—that I need every once in awhile.
The underlying theme I’ve noticed at the end of each solo-golf session, is clarity.
I’m forced to slow down, be with my thoughts and have the space to consider everything going on in my life for more than the usual 30 seconds at every other part of my day. It’s like meditation without meditation.
And everyone needs it.
Time alone is crucial for mental clarity.
From the second we wake up every morning, we have obligations: obligations to respond to texts or social notifications, obligations for work or school or family, obligations to feed the dog—etcetera.
Most of us don’t consider these things obligations, but that’s exactly what they are. In all of those examples, you’re doing something for someone other than yourself. And you have these types of obligations—among countless others—until your head hits the pillow for bedtime.
A lot of us don’t know what it’s like to have even half-an-hour completely to ourselves anymore. And on the rare occasion it happens, we don’t know what to do—as if we’ve forgotten how to ‘be’. We’re noticeably uncomfortable, and quickly try to find something to occupy the empty space.
We’re losing touch with ourselves. And if we’re out of touch, we won’t be in the right space mentally to maximize our potential. We’ll fail to consider ourselves before obligations to other people or things, leaving our decision-making processes skewed.
Take a few hours to yourself at least once a week.
That means completely to yourself.
No friends, no phones, no T.V. to watch—nothing that can be considered a potential distraction on your quest for mental clarity.
‘Taking a few hours to yourself,’ doesn’t have to be meditation—hence “meditation without meditation” above. I understand how hard it can be to meditate, and if that’s not something you’re into, partaking in a casual activity like shooting hoops or organizing your apartment or drawing or doing a bodyweight workout or playing golf or going for a hike or doing whatever else peaks your interests, works just as well — so long as whatever you do gives your mind the freedom to wander, relax, and consider yourself before everything else.
By no means should you feel guilty about putting yourself first for once—it’s not a selfish thing to do. If you want to attack your goals, live your best life and always bring your ‘A’-game to the rest of your daily obligations, you need to be in the right frame-of-mind. And to reach that frame-of-mind, you need to realize what’s best for personal growth.
I mean really: when was the last time you concentrated on one thing — and one thing only — without being interrupted by anyone, including over text message or social notification?
All of us could use time away from the obligations of everyday life to gather our thoughts and actually make sense of what’s going on in our heads.
We never get time to ourselves anymore.
So we need to start making it.

