Put Your Phone Down Long Enough To Remember Who You Are
I’ve been spending a lot more time away from my phone lately.
Not in a dramatic way. I haven’t deleted social media or disappeared from the internet. I’ve simply been creating more room in my days for quiet. More walks without listening to anything. More mornings sitting outside with my coffee. More moments where I am not immediately reaching for input the second there is silence.
What I’ve noticed is that some of my clearest thoughts have returned in those moments.
Over the last few years, many of us have become so immersed in what everyone else is doing that we’ve slowly lost touch with ourselves.
We spend our days consuming. Watching how other people build businesses, share their ideas, raise their children, express themselves, and move through the world. At any given moment, we have access to thousands of perspectives and endless examples of who we could become.
There is immense value in learning from others.
Inspiration has never been the problem.
The problem is that we rarely step away long enough to ask ourselves what we actually think.
What do we want?
What feels true for us?
What kind of life are we trying to build?
What naturally wants to come through us?
These questions require space, and space has become increasingly difficult to find.
Over the past year, I’ve found myself returning to these questions often. There have been moments where I’ve questioned how I want to spend my time, what I want my work to look like, and who I am becoming outside of the roles I’ve held for so long.
For years, I identified deeply with being a founder and creative director. Those parts of me are meaningful and will always remain part of my story. At the same time, other parts of me have been asking to be seen.
The writer. The observer. The woman who enjoys conversations about trust, identity, leadership, motherhood, wellness, and the quieter aspects of becoming.
None of these parts disappeared, they simply became more difficult to hear. Because when there is constant noise, there is very little room left for reflection. Without reflection, it becomes difficult to know what is actually ours.
Our ideas.
Our desires.
Our definitions of success.
At some point, it becomes difficult to distinguish between what we genuinely want and what we’ve simply been exposed to enough times that it now feels like something we should want.
To me this feels like one of the greatest challenges of our time.
Not access to information, but discernment. Learning how to separate our own voice from everyone else’s and more importantly how to trust ourselves again.
We’ve become so accustomed to constant stimulation that stillness can feel uncomfortable. Silence can feel unproductive. Boredom can feel like something that needs to be solved. Yet boredom creates the conditions for creativity.
Some of the most meaningful shifts in my own life have happened in ordinary moments. Driving home after dropping Mason off at school. Sitting outside for the sunrise sipping my warm matcha, listening to the birds chirp. Being fully present on a nature walk. Moments that didn’t appear significant at the time, yet somehow became the moments where something quietly changed.
A realization surfaced.
A question became impossible to ignore.
A truth finally had enough room to be heard.
Life reveals things to us when we give it our attention.
This is also why creativity has so much to do with living. As children, we understood this naturally. We created because it felt good. We spent hours imagining, wandering, and becoming immersed in the world around us. There was no audience and no expectation that what we created needed to become something useful. There was simply curiosity. Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that creativity needed to become productive. It needed to be monetized, optimized, or turned into something measurable.
But creativity has never responded well to pressure.
It responds to spaciousness, curiosity, and presence.
This feels especially important right now as we’re entering a time where information is no longer scarce. Ideas can be generated in seconds. Trends move faster than ever, and we have endless access to other people’s perspectives, opinions, and experiences. The ability to consume more information will not be what sets people apart. What will matter is perspective.
The ability to notice something others overlook, to make meaning from ordinary experiences, and to communicate from a life that has been fully lived. Remember, no one else has lived your life. No one else notices exactly what you notice. No one else has arrived at the same conclusions through the same experiences.
Your perspective is valuable because it cannot be replicated.
This is why so many people feel exhausted. They’re trying to become more like everyone else while slowly moving further away from themselves. Ironically people do not resonate with perfection, they resonate with honesty and lived experiences.
Presence creates that.
A full life creates that.
Paying attention creates that.
Some of the most meaningful ideas do not arrive when we’re actively searching for them. They emerge while walking, sitting outside with a cup of coffee, having dinner with friends, driving in silence, or watching our children tell us about their day. Life has a way of quietly revealing things to us when we are paying close enough attention.
A conversation changes the way we see something.
A book stays with us.
A feeling continues returning.
An ordinary moment suddenly carries significance.
This is where so much creativity comes from.Not from consuming more, but from participating more deeply in our own lives.
Sadly, many people feel disconnected from their creativity because they have become disconnected from themselves. There is very little room left for reflection when every quiet moment is immediately filled with input. The result is that we slowly lose touch with our own thoughts, desires, observations, and ways of seeing the world.
Returning to ourselves often looks much simpler than we imagine.
It looks like taking the longer walk.
Leaving the phone inside.
Watching the sunset.
Calling a friend.
Sitting outside a little longer.
Allowing ourselves to become bored.
Paying attention to what captures our interest and what quietly moves us.
Because life itself is the source.
The conversation that changes your perspective.
The way your child laughs.
The feeling of driving home with the windows down.
The moments that remind you what it means to be here.
These experiences shape the way we see the world, and from that perspective, creativity naturally emerges. I believe the future belongs to people who know how to pay attention, make meaning from their experiences, and create from a place of authenticity that cannot be replicated.
So if you’ve made it this far, put your phone down. Go live, become fully present in your own life, and allow yourself to be surprised by what emerges when you create enough space to hear yourself again. 🤍
If this resonated with you, I’m sharing more reflections on creativity, business, identity, and the quiet work of becoming here on Substack. I’d love for you to follow along.