Solitude

I am a person who practices solitude.

The syntax of that sentence probably sounds off, even clunky. We’ll come back to that.

One of the unexpected benefits of going to University of Michigan in 2010 to complete my undergrad (after initially getting rejected - a blog for another time) was meeting Mike Erwin. The phrase “force of nature” gets thrown out a lot to describe high impact leaders, but Mike deserves that description. His energy is infectious, and his desire and capacity to help others is seemingly boundless.

Mike was pursuing his PhD in positive psychology while I was wrapping up my bachelors, and we met when our local student veterans chapter decided to support the nonprofit he had just launched: Team Red, White, & Blue. RWB has since grown into one of the preeminent veteran service organizations, thanks in no small part to Mike’s drive and leadership.

Flash forward to 2019, where I somehow found myself at the helm of Warrior-Scholar Project, my true dream job. I understood WSP’s programs in and out, thanks to the years I spent building a version of the program at Michigan with an exceptionally talented team. And the mission of WSP — to propel enlisted veterans to success in higher ed — resonates in the fiber of my being. Sound overwrought? Too bad. It’s the truth.

The thing I didn’t really know was how to lead, nurture, and grow a national organization. As I sought professional development opportunities, I saw that Mike had started offering leadership courses as part of his Character & Leadership Center. Bingo.

To help prepare, I read Mike’s first book “Lead Yourself First: Inspiring Leadership Through Solitude.” It had an outsized impact on me, and I find still myself flipping back to certain sections and ruminating on the takeaways often. Reading about General Eisenhower's deliberate solitude in the lead up to D-Day, for example, both reinforced the necessity of quiet reflection and gave me a useful tool to keep myself in check: no matter what challenge I face, it’ll never come anywhere close to Eisenhower giving the go ahead to launch that attack.

I didn’t want to come out of the seminar and close the book with ideas a-plenty but actions a-lackin’. So I put something simple on my daily task list in Todoist (my ideal task tracker — again, a post for another time): a daily task simply called “solitude.”

Over the years, I’ve found solitude in many ways. My ideal morning starts with mindfulness (Headspace!), which certainly counts. Sometimes it's through yoga or other exercise. On rare occasions, like right now, I’m actually able to get away and spend time hiking in the woods alone. Solitude box checked. And sometimes, when it’s the end of wild day and I still see that incomplete task on my list, I'll take a few minutes to reflect on the day, jotting down my thoughts in my journal (DayOne!). Box checked.

And now, back to that opening line: I am a person who practices solitude. It takes many forms, it leads to different outcomes, it varies in length, but after years of practice, I can confidently say that this is part of who I am.

I've been working with a coach lately (another post in the making, because holy shit has that been worthwhile) who reminded me of a profound way to internalize habits: acknowledge and believe that they are part of your identity. If the habit you’d like to form is to workout every morning, after a few workouts you can start identifying as someone who works out in the mornings. That doesn't mean you hit every single morning without fail, but it does mean that you actually start thinking of yourself as someone who does this particular thing routinely.

If this habit/identify stuff sounds goofy, just give it a shot. There’s something meaningful about priming our thinking with reflection, and I’ve found that my own “I am a person who works out regularly” identify-in-formation has helped me give grace to myself when I miss a day, and feel even more empowered when I keep a streak going.

If you don’t incorporate some form of quiet reflection in your daily routine, give that a shot, too. It doesn’t take a weeklong silent retreat run by gurus to build the practice.

Start, however imperfectly, and pay attention to what you learn along the way.