How Embracing Solitude Enables a Step-Change Mindset

It is hard to think differently when surrounded by the same people and stuff. Embracing solitude and seeking a clean slate gives space for transformational thinking.

While a familiar environment might play a soothing role amidst the stresses and strains of life, when you reach a crossroads in life such as a new job search, this familiarity can stifle any thoughts of significant change. When you are constantly reminded of your everyday comforts, a risk-averse attitude of minimising disruption is a natural reaction when the time comes to make a change.

In an uncertain world, you might argue that playing it safe is not such a bad option. Many of us have mortgages, children and a myriad of other responsibilities. Why would we not want to retain much of what we know and love? After all, pursuing an incremental approach to change is still moving us in the right direction.

Nine times out of ten, this is the approach that we will take, but unless we imagine a more radical option, the “road less travelled” will never be on the cards.

To paraphrase Robert Frost, that could make all the difference.

To picture what this road might look like, we need to step out of our comfort bubble and find a place where embracing solitude is possible. When our current life seems distant, our future life is filled with possibility. For me, solitude is not only about being alone; it is about finding a place of emptiness.

Detachment of embracing solitude

Meditation gurus might be able to close their eyes and do this without moving, but for regular folk, it is easier to retreat from everything familiar. For me, embracing solitude is about being physically and mentally detached from your current reality.

When you get out of your everyday groove, you give your brain permission to pursue entirely new thought processes. When you want something “different” from your life but are not quite sure what it means, clarity often comes from the previously unexplored realms of your mind. You allow yourself to forget what has been and do not discount the possibility of a whole new dimension.

I know that this sounds like a load of fluffy ideas, but there is a lot of science behind what I am suggesting. For our minds to create new neural pathways, we must give ourselves a rest from our well-worn everyday habits.

I escape to Cornwall for a week every summer for precisely this reason. My kids and wife go to visit her parents, and I seek the solitude of the wild north Cornish coast. I have been happily writing for my clients since 2012, so my thoughts do not typically centre around my career, but it is rare that I drive home without a few other seeds of inspiration in my head.

That is what solitude does – it allows you to do nothing else but think.

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This blog is shared with Job Seeker Duetists.

Written by former recruitment ghostwriter Paul Drury (not AI).