The Power of Being Alone

There’s a big difference between being alone and being lonely.

In this episode of CEO of Me, I’m talking about why learning to enjoy your own company is one of the most valuable skills you can develop. So many people settle—for relationships, friendships, jobs, or situations—because they're afraid of being alone. But when you become comfortable in your own space, you stop making decisions from fear and start making them from confidence.

We’ll talk about:
• Why being alone builds confidence
• The difference between loneliness and solitude
• How independence creates better relationships
• Why protecting your peace is a superpower
• Learning to genuinely enjoy your own company

If you've ever struggled with feeling behind, comparing yourself to others, or wondering if being alone means something is wrong with you, this episode is for you.

Thanks so much for listening. If this episode resonated with you, I'd love if you left a review, shared it with a friend, or tagged me on Instagram @angelicamackk.

And remember… confidence looks good on you. 🤍

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Can I make a controversial statement? I don't know why I'm even asking you. I'm gonna make it. I think, well, I kind of know. I have a strong feeling that the woman who cannot be alone will always settle. That might hurt. That may be a little controversial, but I will explain it. It's not because she's not smart, and she definitely knows what she deserves. It's because the the fear of being alone is just so much louder than anything else that goes through your head that you're like, I'm just gonna stay here. Today I want to talk about why learning to enjoy my own company, like really enjoy it, love it, and want it, made me change my entire approach to relationships, friendships, my career, literally everything. And it changed the way I see myself. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the CEO of me. I'm Angelica. And if you're not new here, welcome back. I'm glad to see you again. Over the weekend, there were a lot of thoughts in my head about being alone and enjoying being alone. And I've had some conversations with friends, I listened to some other podcasts, and it really just all made this episode come to fruition because I was like, okay, not only is this on my heart, but I've had this conversation with a friend about this. I also listened to a podcast this morning that briefly talked about being alone, and the podcast was not about being alone, but the guest speaker was talking about his journey on how he realized that his alone time was like the biggest thing that helped him get to where he was. And I was like, oh my gosh, this means something. All these things are happening. So we're gonna talk about that today. I feel that I feel that a lot of people, not just women, but I'm primarily talking to women, that a lot of women struggle with being alone. And I don't know where this started, but the whole FOMO thing, fear of missing out. I feel like high school, maybe college is where that started for me at least, where I was like, if I don't have plans, if I'm not doing anything every weekend, then I'm hanging out with friends at my house, or I'm going to their house and I'm hanging out there for hours. Like, I remember in high school, of course, I had way more time then, but I remember in high school, I would hang out at my best friend's house like all day, especially on a Saturday. Like we were kicking it all day, eating three or four meals together. Like it was honestly amazing. I loved it, but I think somewhere along that line, you started realizing like if you're not doing something, you don't have plans, you're not with your friends, then why would you be alone? At least have someone come over, you know? And I feel like that's kind of where that thought process of not wanting to be alone kind of started, at least for me, was in high school, in college, and like realizing like I want to hang out with my friends all the time. And not really understanding like what that really means or like what was I running away from. But after high school, and really towards the end of my college, I would say junior, senior year, is when I really started realizing like the more time I spent with myself, the more reflection I was able to have, the more like deep thought and ideas that would come up. I just started to feel like the time with myself was just so precious. And that took some time. Of course, it wasn't until, like I said, at the end of college that I was like, okay, no, I'm gonna stay in. This sounds way more fun to stay in. And it didn't even have to be always like this deep thought process, like this deep reflection. Like you could just be staying in just to stay in and like binge a show. Like it doesn't have to be this deep thing. But I realized that towards the end of my college career, my undergrad was that feeling of joy of just being alone by myself in my own dorm room. It was awesome. Well, wait, well, wait, wait, wait. I was not in a dorm room, my junior or senior year of college, but that part doesn't matter. In my apartment, whatever, I enjoyed being alone in my apartment. So we're gonna talk about why I feel that any woman that has issues or struggles with being alone, which is okay, there's nothing wrong with that. If you struggle with being alone, you may find yourself settling a lot more. Let's talk about it. If you are uncomfortable alone, meaning you're uneasy, you spend time at home for like 10, 20 minutes and you're immediately making plans, or you cannot spend any time at home alone over the weekend or even after work, you're always immediately texting someone to either come over or go over their house. Those are signs that you may be uncomfortable being alone. And if you are uncomfortable being alone, you may be accepting a lot more than what you know you should be accepting. I think we settle because we're really trying to escape that discomfort that you may feel when you are completely alone at home. Sometimes it's that relationship that you know should have ended months ago, or that friendship that you know no longer feeds you and you don't want to feed it. That happens. That's a thing. It can be mutual. Or sometimes it's staying at that job that completely drains you every single day that by the time you get home, you need to fill your cup up. Literally and figuratively. Or maybe it's even saying yes to those plans that you don't really want to do, but you do it anyways because that's way better than just sitting at home alone. When you don't enjoy your own company, the company of someone else, anyone else, is better than your own company. And that's where it gets scary and that's when it gets really concerning because you don't want people in your space that aren't good for you just because you don't want to be alone. Your own time by yourself, truthfully, is better than having someone else in your space that's not good for you. That's not helping you. And that's where the settling really begins. And it's not because you don't know your own worth. I'm pretty sure you know exactly what your worth is. It's simply because being alone feels so uncomfortable, you'd rather just accept less. And that's why people settle. And oh, it makes me so upset, it makes me so angry when I'm talking to friends or clients about this. And they literally always say, you know, I just don't want to be alone. I don't want to sleep alone. I don't want to come home alone. And that's why they stay in these relationships, and it just hurts my heart. And I wish that there was something that would just automatically and miraculously make you want to just enjoy being alone and makes you want to be alone. And we're gonna get to that, we're gonna get to some steps, but I do wish that for everyone out there, specifically women that are in really, really bad situations, and they stay in it because they don't want to be alone. Especially when you see the red flags, you know the red flags, and you still stay. Being alone is not the same as being lonely. And I recently discovered that saying probably a couple months ago when I was thinking about it, because I was talking to some of my clients about it, and I was telling them, like, you know, I don't feel lonely. But yeah, 90% of the time, not 90, that's aggressive. I would say about 70% of the time, I'm alone. And I don't feel lonely though. It doesn't make me sad, it doesn't make me feel like I'm missing out on anything. So a lot of times we get those terms confused. Lonely versus being alone are two different things. Loneliness sometimes feels like you're disconnected from the world, your friends, your family. Loneliness feels kind of sad sometimes. Loneliness has a sad undertone, in my opinion. And that's not what it is. Solitude and being alone is choosing peace. You're not lonely. Some of the most miraculous revelations that I've had recently was when I was alone. Honestly, all of them have been when I'm alone in my own thoughts, rather, that's listening to music, when I'm cooking alone, when I'm just sitting on the couch, there's no music playing, there's no TV, I'm journaling. Like those moments are so, so beautiful. And when you start enjoying it, I feel like it becomes even more beautiful. Like, if that's even possible. Once you start enjoying your alone time, ugh, I feel like as a woman, you just become so powerful and strong because you are not hanging around with people just because you need the company or you want the company. You're very strategic about who you hang out with because you love being alone so much. It's like if I hang out with you, the time together's gotta be equal to or better than my time alone. You know? You become a lot more picky, that's all I gotta say. That's all I gotta say. I love going shopping alone, running errands alone, going to eat alone. I love taking myself out to dinner. It's so fun. I was just in Seattle last week, and I went to brunch, and it was so fun. I love going to brunch for myself. I just love sitting at the bar, ordering all my food, eating all my food, and it's just fun. And yeah, I get a lot of looks sometimes. I've even had people say, like, wow, what a loser. I can't believe he would stand you up. And I'm like, no one stood me up. That's crazy. I'm here eating dinner alone because that's what I want. No one stood me up. That's wild. That's wild, but thank you. But no, I'm actually here alone. But that's actually happened to me before. Someone has walked by while I'm eating dinner by myself. They're like, that guy must be such a loser for not showing up to dinner. And I'm like, they were no one was supposed to show up. It this is me. I'm supposed to be alone. I'm supposed to be alone. And they just like we just laugh and chuckle, and I'm just like, yeah. I'm like, yeah, yeah. And then they were just like, good for you, good for you. I love that. I love to see that. I'm like, yeah. Let's see more women taking themselves out to dinner, and let's not assume that a woman is out to dinner by herself that she got stood up. Let's not assume that anymore. Let's let's assume the other one. Let's assume the other side because that's a thing. That's a thing. Just existing without feeling like I needed someone or I needed that validation from someone really opened up my eyes and it made me want to do more things alone. I love it. And I would say these feelings have been happening definitely since, like I said, my junior, senior year of undergrad. Since then, it's just gotten honestly stronger and stronger. Like, I can go out alone. I can meet my friends in a city alone, I can travel alone. I mean, I do everything alone pretty much. And that's because the more you practice being alone, the easier it gets, the more fun you're gonna have being alone. And eventually it just becomes the normal. Like that is the norm for me. I do everything alone. The silence of you being alone in solitude in your home, in your comfort zone helps you really hear yourself. Like hear yourself. And this was probably my greatest lesson from being alone. Because when your life is constantly on go, go, go, go, go, or it's noisy, you're dealing with family members, you're dealing with your kids, you're dealing with your business or your employees, like whatever it is, it's just loud. It's just noisy internally, externally. It's a lot. Phone calls, texts, plans, birthday parties, baby showers, weddings, all of it. You never actually hear your own thoughts and your own voice. And we need to hear our voice. We need to hear ourselves think. We need to hear ourselves reflect. We need to hear ourselves problem solve, figure out like, okay, what do I need to do? How do I make this better? How did I act? How did I react? Whatever, all the things. We need to really hear ourselves think that, verbally say it, and do it in a space where you're alone and no one else can give you any feedback or no one else can say anything. Like you need that. We need that. I don't think that it's a coincidence that almost all of my biggest ideas have come from me being literally in my own home. The podcast, my YouTube channel, the business, how I want to run the business, the business with my sister has all started with me being at home alone in my own space. And during those times, my goals, my standards, the ideas of the future that I want, the house I want to live in, all of those things just started to become a lot more clear. Those things didn't come from distraction or someone just being in my space because I needed them there or I wanted the company, or I needed the company. Let me rephrase that. I needed the company. It came from enough silence to ask myself out loud, what the heck do I want? What do I want to do? How do I want this to turn out? Where do I want this to go? Not about what everyone expects, not what the internet says I should do, but what do I actually want? And I specifically remember these times sitting down and asking myself this. I still do. I mean, it's a never-ending thing. But I remember those times years ago when I was getting started and I was doing contract work and I was really trying to figure out like, where do I want to take this career? Like, you know, and asking myself that out loud really helped me, and I was alone. Let's talk a little bit about confidence because I do feel confidence plays a pretty massive role in being okay with being alone and being okay with not having anyone around, not having anyone text you, not having anyone check in on you. A lot of people think that confidence comes from looking good or having a lot of money, having the nice car, having the big boat. But in fact, that's not what confidence actually is. Real confidence comes from knowing that you will be okay. It doesn't matter if anyone texts you, good morning. It doesn't matter if anyone's checking in on you. It doesn't matter if you get that invite to the party or you don't get that invite, you know you're gonna be okay. That is where confidence really starts to build. When you don't feel like you're missing out on anything, you never have FOMO. In fact, you'd rather not know. That's that's when that confidence starts to build, where you're just like, I don't care. I don't care. I had so much fun at home by myself. I don't care. I didn't miss anything. That's when that confidence builds. That's where it builds. I mean, even if no one calls you or you spend your Friday nights alone in the house, even if you don't have plans that weekend, even if you don't have any trips planned, like you know you're gonna be okay because you have yourself. You know that your happiness is not dependent on anyone else. If they show up, if they don't show up, if they text you, if they don't text you, your happiness isn't dependent on that. And that's when you become strong. Stop attaching your happiness to what other people are doing for you. Instead, you find your happiness in yourself. It doesn't bother you if no one texts you good morning, or it doesn't bother you if you don't get those plans over the weekend, or you don't get invited to that party or this club or whatever. Like you don't care because your happiness isn't attached to that invite or that text message. And that baby girl is like true freedom. Like freedom. Capital F. And honestly, once you experience that, it's extremely challenging going back. You really can't go back, in my opinion. It's very hard to go back to that. When you're okay alone, you stop settling completely. And this is where everything changes. You stop begging people to stay, you stop peer pressuring people to stay out with you or stay up with you longer. You stop forcing friendships, you stop chasing friendships or relationships that you know don't serve you. You stop lowering your standards just because you want someone around you. Because now you're not choosing people out of fear, you're choosing them because they genuinely make your life better. To me, that is a really, really incredible life when you choose people to be in your life and keep them in your life because you know that they are making your life better. And you know that when you're with them, you feel good. And it's almost like you feel just as good as you are when you're alone. And that's pretty incredible to be around someone and have those same feelings and joy and comfort of being alone, but you're with someone else. I think that that's truly just incredible. Choosing people to be in your life as opposed to keeping them in your life because you don't want to be alone are two completely different things and two completely different outcomes. We want people in our lives that make our lives better. We want people around us that make our lives better. And if that's not happening, just be alone, hang out alone, be by yourself. And I know, like I said earlier, this is a very deep, deep issue. Like, I'm a firm believer that like the struggle of being alone may have some deep-rooted trauma issues from when you were younger. And I get that. I see that and I get it, and I think that that's where that comes from. But I'm here to tell you that you can let go of that. It's possible. You don't have to force yourself to continue this cycle of settling and keeping people in your life because you don't want to be alone, because your younger self had issues with being alone or or needed to feel someone around them to feel better, you know. Like you can get through this, you can do it. You can definitely come out from under that. I don't want to say it's a curse, but you can come out from under that burden. It is a burden to feel like you need to have someone around. So you can do it. I believe in you. This episode was on my heart for a reason. And if you're watching this right now and you struggle with being alone, we can do this. Okay? We can definitely do this. How do you start getting comfortable with being alone? Great questions. Yes, of course, it's a lot easier said than done. Especially, like I said, if there's some underlying trauma behind that, it's definitely a lot harder. But let's get into some steps on how to start it, okay? Start taking yourself out on dates. Even if that means you need to talk on the phone with a close good friend, good emphasis on the good, good friend on your way to the restaurant, and then you get off the phone when you get there, and then you call her immediately after dinner. Do that. But I do not want you to be sitting at dinner on a FaceTime call the whole time. I mean take yourself out to dinner by yourself, not being on the phone with anyone else. Try that. Even if it's just cafe rio, it doesn't have to be a fancy dinner, but just take yourself out to a dinner spot where you're sitting down by yourself, eating by yourself. Or a date can be just going to Target by yourself, going to a coffee shop by yourself. Any of those things is considered a date. And every once in a while, this may be a stretch. Leave your AirPods at home. Go out and actually have a conversation with the server. Have a conversation with the cashier. Or just be in your own thoughts at dinner, at the restaurant, at the coffee shop, wherever you are. Be in your own thoughts and sit in solitude. Sit and just observe what's happening around you. Listen to the music. Look at the restaurant, look at the flooring, look at the walls. Like really start to observe what's going on around you. When you spend your time alone with no AirPods in, no music, no FaceTime, not talking to anyone, you really start seeing the world around you in a different way because there's no distractions. You're actually talking to people. I know that sounds crazy, but it's a thing and it feels good. It will start to feel peaceful, I guarantee it. The next thing I want you to do to work on, you know, this whole enjoy being alone thing is to stop filling up your empty space. If you have an extra one or two hours on your calendar, don't fill it up with a meeting. Or obviously if you have to, do that, but don't fill it up. Leave it open. Go for a walk. If you have some extra time at home at the end of the day, don't fill it with calling your friends, seeing how their day went. Just be alone. Try it. Just try it. If by Wednesday or Thursday you don't have plans for the weekend, awesome. Don't fill up the calendar. Don't start making plans for Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Don't do that. Leave it open. It feels so nice to wake up on a Saturday or Sunday morning and be like, wow, I have nothing to do today. No one is looking for me. No one wants to hang out. I don't want to hang out. This is perfect. That feels good. It feels really good, honestly. Some of my best weekends are the ones when I'm at home, I'm alone, I'm able to do my meal prepping for the week. I have all my cleaning done, all my laundry is done. Like, those are some of my favorite nights. And I cherish those nights now. Like, I don't care to go out anymore. I don't care to go out Friday, Saturday, Sunday at the day club. Like, that was me back then. And I can't say that I was doing that because I had a fear of being alone. I just enjoyed partying, honestly. And so now I love Being alone more than I love partying. So you can change. It's possible. Okay. It's possible. The point is, not every free moment needs to be filled with someone else or something else. It just doesn't need to be. Keep it open. I've realized that sometimes protecting my piece is way more productive than trying to fill up my social calendar. Next thing I want you to ask yourself: instead of asking who wants to hang out, which I see this all the time on Instagram, those little bubble things, you know, it's not a thread, but it's like a little update or whatever that you put on top of your bio picture. I see it all the time. Who wants to hang out? Like question mark. And I'm just like, I'm just like, um, like, you know? Like, I don't know. Because I always want to write back and be like, if you have to ask that, just be alone. Just hang out by yourself. But I'm I would never do that because that's just not my space on social media. But stop asking who wants to hang out. Ask yourself, what do I want to do today? How do I want to spend my day? We really don't ask ourselves enough that question. What do I want to do today? We're so bent on working around other people's schedule, trying to make someone else's schedule fit into yours when really that's not what you should be doing. You should just be letting things be and allowing your day and your time to be yours first. Then you can figure out plans if you want, but you don't have to either. We really forget to ask ourselves like what actually sounds enjoyable for me today in this moment, with how I'm feeling, with the week that I had. All of those things are factors. And that's where self-awareness really starts to play a role. So ask yourself that instead of who wants to hang out. Don't be that person on Instagram asking all your followers who wants to hang out. This is a hard one. This next one is a hard one. Um, it's to try to build a life that you don't want to escape from. And I think that a lot of people, I mean, it was me when I worked in corporate. The nine to five, you're just living for the weekend. Every single day, you are looking forward to Friday. Hump day, you're almost there. Thursday, oh, it's Friday Eve, guys. We're almost there. On Monday, you're like, oh, getting started with the week. You know those sayings that people say. Like, that's very common in those office spaces. Like, everyone is looking forward to Friday. Like they cannot wait for Friday. And I get that because I was there. I was totally there. But when it comes to building a life you don't want to escape, it is hard. This is a deep one. This is not an action step necessarily, but this is just something I want you to think about. And instead of always thinking about Friday, try to make your days during the week just as joyful or marvelous as that Saturday morning is. You know, try to make your time during the week exciting so that you're not always just looking for that time off on the weekends. Or you're not waiting for someone to text you, WYD. Like you're not waiting for that anymore. What if the goal was to build a life that we genuinely loved to wake up to? Not every day because that's impossible, but most days. What if that was the goal? Instead of always wanting to escape and get that time off. And it's hard. This one is hard mainly because I don't feel that it's a negative thing or a bad thing to enjoy your time off and want to have time off. And in the same statement, I don't think that if you enjoy your time off, that you necessarily don't enjoy your work life. I think that they can both exist. And that's why this one is hard. That's why this one is hard. Like, I don't feel that I am trying to escape from my life by looking forward to the weekend or looking forward to a vacation. I just really love traveling. I love vacationing. I love being at home alone and in silence. Like, I love that, but I also love my job and I love my work that I do and my company. I love that too. So that's why this is a tricky one. Just think about it. Just think about it. We want a life that's fulfilling every single day of the week, not just on the weekends, or not just when we're on vacation. That's the point. The thing is, I definitely am not preaching or talking about not needing people. I don't believe that. I know we need people. We thrive off of human connection and community. So that's not what I'm preaching about. I'm not saying you don't need people. The point is to find happiness in your own time and love being alone by yourself and not having to need someone around just to feel happy or to feel content. That's what this is about. You don't want to be someone that doesn't feel complete when someone's not around. Of course, we don't want to spend our whole life alone. I don't want to spend my life alone. That is definitely not the goal or the point of this. The goal is to build a life that you're so proud of that when that right person comes, they're just adding to it. Like adding, big on the plus, not taking away from it. And that's the beauty of spending your time alone and by yourself, is that you're really working on yourself. You're preparing yourself for that person in the future that's gonna be your lifelong partner. You're preparing yourself for that. Because when your happiness is attached to someone else showing up, or someone else texting you, good morning, or checking in on you, or calling you, or inviting you out, that's when you start to settle and you start being around people that aren't good for you because you just need them around. That's when your standards really start to disappear. That's when you start to settle and you just start being around people that you know you should not be around, but you're around them because you don't want to be alone. But when you've built, but when you've built a life that you genuinely enjoy and you're happy and you're proud of, you stop asking, when will they choose me or why didn't they choose me? Instead, you're asking yourself, do they deserve a seat at my table that I've built? Do they deserve to have my precious free time that I love, that I cherish, that I truly, truly enjoy? Is that person worthy enough to take that away? And that's what you start asking yourself. From that question, you really start being a lot more strategic about who you spend your free time with. Because depending on your life and how much free time you have, if you don't have a lot of it and you love the little bit of free time that you do have, it's gonna be hard for you to give that up to anyone. So, yeah. You definitely become a lot more picky. So start enjoying your free time, start enjoying your alone time because it's gonna change everything. I really want you to become someone who's completely at peace with herself. Not needing validation, not needing someone around all the time. That's what I want for you. And that's why this episode meant so much to me. And it was on my heart all weekend because I spent most of the weekend alone. I spent a lot of my time alone, and I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it so much that it made me think like, I know this is not everyone's story. Like, I know it's not because I was talking to a friend about it, and I was like, okay, this is this is gonna be an episode. This is gonna be an episode. So if that's something you're struggling with, you are not alone. You can do this. You can do this. I totally believe in you. I want you to feel the feelings that I feel when I'm alone. And I want you to feel that confidence, and I want you to get stronger and start getting comfortable with taking yourself out on dates and start doing things completely alone, not feeling like you have to have your friend on FaceTime when you walk through Target because you can't go shopping alone. You can do it. So if this episode resonated with you even just a little bit, that makes me really happy. And I'm super, super excited to hear how you're gonna start changing the way you see your alone time. I'm always available over DM. You can leave something in the comments as well. I'm super reachable. I want you to be able to contact me if you have any questions about this whole concept. And if you're on your own journey of building your confidence, figuring out your future, and trying to understand the woman that you're becoming. This channel is definitely for you, and you definitely want to subscribe because I have a lot of fun episodes coming up that are perfect for you and for me. We're just creating opportunities and building ourselves up so that we can just be the best women on this planet. That's what I'm here for. I want us to be all strong, emotionally independent women. Like that is my goal. That's what this is for. So let's do it together because it's not fun to do it by yourself, okay? We can help each other out. So, as always, take care of yourself, love on yourself, show yourself some grace, and always, always, always be kind to yourself and to others. I will see you on the next episode of CEO of me. Thank you again for being here. I will see you next week. Toodles, bye. I come out of pub. I can't stand every dollar and standard.