I’m an introvert, through and through. I always have been. But I have friends and still enjoy seeing them. Just because you’re introverted doesn’t mean you can’t have friends. But what it does mean, at least for me, is that you just can’t sustain overly prolonged exposure to highly social activities. I can hang out with my close friends for a long weekend, but nowadays, after a wedding weekend of catching up, I get home and in my head, say that was great but I’m ready to be alone again. And alone, meaning with my family. I want to stay connected, but as I’ve grown up, I’ve realized the importance of being okay with being alone.
I think it’s way easier when you’re younger, when you’re single, or in the early stages of a relationship, to have that stamina to be around people, even if you’re introverted. Having that young mind, you’re more open to new experiences, to meeting new people, to testing the waters, and you want to be in those large gatherings, go to the big parties or events, and put yourself out there. You’re young. And so is your mind. You’re free. But as we get older, our minds start to think differently. We get pulled in different directions – by our families, by our spouses, our kids – and we start to change. We start to focus less on being part of experiences for the external appearance and start to focus more on the people we are experiencing things with, the people we are spending our time with. I know it’s cliché, but time is your most valuable asset. And as you get older, you start to realize it. It becomes more apparent. Maybe you have someone close to you that dies. Maybe you get injured doing something, like playing football or sneezing, and when the pain hits you, it hurts more. It lasts longer than it used to. And you start to acknowledge you are getting older. In these moments, time becomes more apparent. It slows down a little bit. Just enough for you to see it pass by and then you’re back to the grind and it’s moving at warp speed again.
When you get that glimpse though, you may see yourself and recognize who you are spending your time with. And I encourage you to ask yourself, are these people important to me? Are they worth my time? I don’t want to get my words twisted so I’ll clarify I believe everyone is worth someone’s time, but are the people you are with, that you’ve surrounded yourself with, worth YOUR time? You only have so much of it. The average lifespan in the U.S. today is 77, according to my quick Google search. As I’m 32, that would mean if I lived an average life, I would have 45 years left. 45 years, 365 days per year, 24 hours per day means I have about 394,000 hours left. And while that may seem like a lot, just think how fast this year’s gone by. We’re into July so 6 months are completely gone this year. That’s over 4,300 hours gone this year already. Now I don’t want to make you panic but just think about that. By the end of the year, that thousand hour mark will tick down by one. 393,000. And it’ll keep going. How many hours have you spent working, spent watching Netflix or the news, spent online shopping for things you don’t need, spent trying to network for your personal career gain, spent with friends you hardly keep in touch with, spent with neighbors or other people that don’t really know you? Are those things, those people, worth YOUR time? What if you died tomorrow? A question that’s thrown around all the time and turned into an even more cliché-y cliché: live like there’s no tomorrow. Much easier said than done. But if you did die tomorrow and could consciously review your life, the experiences you had, the people you spent time with, the work you accomplished, would you feel satisfied? Would you say to yourself, there’s nothing else I wish I could’ve done or would’ve done or should’ve done? Or would you find yourself wishing for another day with your kids, your spouse, your parents, your closest friends, wishing you could’ve taken that trip across the world, wishing you could have another opportunity to make that relationship work?
As a true introvert, who has somewhat curled up in his shell, these are the questions I find myself asking more often these days. Without the busyness of constant interactions with others, forced or chosen, I’m able to think. I’m able to ask the questions and seek the answers, process them, and consciously shape my life around them. Adjust my values. Tweak my daily rituals. Change the type of content I produce. Decide who I actually want to spend time with, who I actually want to be around or have around me. And how did I get here? Moving halfway across the country and being married to my high school sweetheart certainly played a part, but both of those things are wildly atypical so I’ll focus on a few steps I’ve taken in my life to become more “introverted.” Steps that anyone can take, at anytime they choose. Steps towards creating life-changing habits that actually change your life, unlike those various trendy diets or pickleball.
LEARN TO SAY NO.
Look at your current schedule and figure out what commitments you have in the coming days, week, month. Is your calendar completely full? Are you doing something with people every weekend? What about during the week? Do you typically have time with your family alone in the mornings or evenings? Do you make time for that? Do you prioritize it? Or do you allow coworkers or neighbors or friends to come over unannounced?
If you are feeling drained, you are probably being overly extroverted, beyond your personality’s limits. Even if you are someone who is usually extremely outgoing and legitimately enjoy being around large groups of people in social environments, we all need to find some time for ourselves. Every time we are with others, we are spending our time. Just like money, this is time that is given away, it’s spent, and we can’t get it back. And if we spend all of our time on others, we don’t have any left for ourselves or our families.
We all NEED to maintain some for ourselves and our families but we have to consciously PRIORITIZE it. And sometimes that means saying “No.” It’s another thing that’s much easier said than done, although you may not think so. When your coworker invites you to drinks after work to network with the partners at the firm, but you’re supposed to go to your kid’s baseball game, what do you say? You want that promotion. Badly. Do you say, “No thanks, I have a game to go to. I’ll make it to the next happy hour opportunity six months from now?” Or what if you’re about to sit down for dinner, but your neighbors who you actually do like, ask if you want to join them for a birthday party BBQ? Do you abandon the quiet time with your family to connect and discuss days to jump into a chaotic backyard party? Or do you say, “No thanks, we’re going to stay in as a family with our frozen pizza tonight?” Do you always feel a NEED to be around people? Do you have a fear of seeming lame? Preserving time alone is introverted and often frowned upon but it is so important. It can be extremely hard to say NO. But recognize you have a choice. And by learning to say “No” when you need to spend time alone or with family for yourself and your values, you can significantly improve your life.
WRITE.
Writing is probably one of the things you have tried to avoid for the heavy majority of your life. In school, those essays sucked. At work, there’s nothing worse than sending email after email. And when you have the opportunity to sit on the couch with friends and watch the latest Netflix movie, it’s likely you’ll take it rather than choosing to write something because writing seems boring. However, taking time to write allows you to tap into yourself, into your creative side. Putting pen to paper helps gather your thoughts and forces you to process them. Write down your thoughts and opinions. Write down your personal values. And determine if who you are, how you act, what you do on a regular basis, aligns with them.
As you continue to write more, you may find it enjoyable and it may become something you do on a regular basis. To me, it is very therapeutic to express my thoughts, concerns, emotions, goals, and dreams. When we find ourselves stuck in the busy world, there can often be too much noise to really think. And not just in the literal sense of spoken word, music, or other sounds. There can be too much information noise. We consistently process our surroundings and the people around us, often subconsciously. And when there’s too much going on, it can drain us mentally and leave us without energy to process ourselves at a deeper level. By intentionally putting yourself in a box with your mind, without other distractions, you can reach a new level of self-realization.
STOP WATCHING THE NEWS.
Media is addicting. And as just mentioned, we can feel exhausted or stressed when we encounter information overload. The news is built upon feelings of sadness and anger, negative emotions. Human psychology puts more weight on the negative. And when we see negativity, it excites our emotions and makes us want to share them. As you watch more and more, you feel the need to be social and to share and talk about these things with others to either validate your opinions or to destroy those of others. And this creates a bad human connection, founded on negative emotions. We all want to feel a sense of community, but if we seek out or base our interactions with others based on negative messages, we can find ourselves feeling angrier and more sad than usual.
By distancing ourselves from the media and news, and ignoring the impulses to share and spread negativity for the purpose of being the person to “break the news,” we can reduce the amount of negative information flow to our minds. You may be the one who doesn’t know about the latest mass shooting or political gossip and end up being left out of those water cooler conversations at work, but you are also sparing yourself from unnecessary negativity. You may appear to be more introverted if you’re not up to speed on the chatter, but you’ll be better off for it.
CHECK YOUR PHONE.
This one may seem odd to you. It may seem counterintuitive. But if you can avoid social media for a few minutes and look through your recent texts and calls, look at your calendar, look through your photos and you’ll quickly find out who is important to you. Excluding group texts with more than 2 people unless it’s your family, who are those people you are actually trying to stay in touch with? Do you have your friends birthdays in your calendar so you remember to wish them a happy birthday each year? Do you have plans to see them soon? A trip booked to visit? How long are the calls you have with these people? Are they quick check ins or long conversations? Both can be good indicators depending on the person and only you can determine that. What subjects are you texting or talking about? Is it all negative? Gossip about others, problems in the world or in your life? When was the last positive thing you discussed? How often have those people called? Maybe they are reaching out for the first time in awhile. And maybe that’s because they want to reconnect. Do you feel like responding? You can choose to let them back in your life or not. Who are in your recent photos or videos? What are you doing in them? Are you sober or drunk? Do you remember the time? Do you remember the feelings you had in those moments? Were they good? Bad? Happy? Sad? Check your phone and you’ll find out who is important to you.
These are baby steps anyone can take to increase their level of “introversion.” And when you start taking them, you may start to find yourself again. Take that information and start using your time more wisely. Use that time and energy for the important moments of extroversion, spending it with the people who matter, doing the things you love, and nurturing yourself and your values. If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it. Or if you have other thoughts, I’d love to hear them. Feel free to leave a comment or send me a message. As always, thanks for reading!