You Need To Take A Solo Retreat
I first heard about the concept of a solo retreat five years ago. I read that Bill Gates goes on a “Think Week” each year to recharge, reflect, and plan. Supposedly, Gates generates some of his best ideas on these personal retreats.
At the time, the concept of going on a solo retreat sounded strange but energizing.
I vowed to try the idea in my life to see what it was all about.
As I write these words, I’m now on my third solo retreat. For each retreat, I’ve selected a different small cabin or house to spend a weekend in solitude. My first retreat was at a cabin in Cascade, Idaho. Last year I stayed in a converted houseboat. And now, I’m staying in a yurt in Mount Vernon (pictured above)— an hour and a half outside my hometown of Seattle.
It would be an understatement to say these retreats have been worthwhile. Each experience has been the refreshing reset I needed.
There’s something incredibly life-giving about retreating from the rest of the world to redefine and reclaim what is most important in life.
A Chance to Disconnect
Inevitably, I spend most of my time reading during these solo retreats. This weekend I’ve been reading a little bit of everything: Choose Yourself by James Altucher, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and Walden by Henry David Thoreau (talk about a perfect environment for reading this book!).
This was how my day played out today:
- 9:15–10:00am — Breakfast while reading
- 10:00am-1:00pm — Hike to scenic overlook (pictured below), read for a while, then hike back
- 1:00–2:30pm — Lunch, more reading
- 2:30–3:00pm — Short nap
- 3:00–7:00pm — Reading
- 7:00–9:30pm — BBQ burgers on grill, reading, then s’mores over the fire
- 9:30–10:30pm — Writing
Pretty awesome schedule, huh?!
These solo retreats are my chance to escape social media, disconnect from my phone, and forget the daily stresses of work and life.
“Men have become the tools of their tools.” -Henry David Thoreau
Research indicates that spending time in nature can actually improve our ability to concentrate. This concept is called attention restoration theory. Personally, I can attest to nature’s ability to restore focus in my own life during these retreats.
What Does This Mean For You?
Multiple friends have told me they admire that I do these solo retreats, but that they’d personally “never be able to find the time to do it.”
That may indeed be true. But it kills me that more people don’t prioritize meaningful solitude like this.
There are always a million reasons not to go on a retreat like this (too busy, too expensive, no babysitter, etc.), but the investment is always worth the cost. I’ve never once been disappointed by one of these solo retreats.
Here are a few things to consider if you decide to do a solo retreat:
- Pick somewhere secluded. I’ve found that locations within a one- to three-hour drive are best for me, as that distance is far enough to feel like an escape but close enough for the drive to not feel like a burden.
- Start with one or two nights. I eventually want to try a longer retreat, but for now, two nights has been the right amount of time for me. I usually leave work early on a Friday and return on Sunday afternoon. It’s easy to mentally justify a solo retreat if you don’t even need to take a day off work for it. Plus, two nights is enough time to recharge the batteries.
- Decide upon a digital gameplan. Determine how you’re going to eliminate or minimize your phone and internet usage while you’re on your retreat. You’re not retreating away to watch Netflix all day in solitude.
- Don’t set goals or an agenda. Even though I’m an extremely goal-oriented person, I’ve yet to set an agenda for one of these trips. I’ve found it’s best to go wherever the wind takes me — whether that means a long walk, sitting by the campfire in silence, reading for hours on end, or tackling a new writing project. You want your mind to be able to roam free. Don’t make the weekend feel like work.
Taking a solo retreat is one of those things that you don’t know what you’re missing until you give it a shot. It’s the most sneakily productive thing you can do. And I don’t mean productivity strictly in the sense of DOING things; I mean it in the sense of BEING someone of substance.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Thoreau:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived…I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…” -Henry David Thoreau
What about you? Are you sucking the marrow out of life?
