Why Everyone Needs a Solo Retreat (And How It Changed Everything for Me)

I woke up in the summer of 2022 with my jaw shut.

I literally couldn’t open my mouth. I felt a jolt of pain around my jaw when I'd try to say something.

This has never happened to me before.

After 10 minutes of warming up, I finally opened my mouth as wide as possible, feeling the soreness on the sides of my face.

I didn’t fully realize it then but my body knew: I was stressed.

Really f*cking stressed.

I was in the last week of planning a huge 4-day retreat for 50+ entrepreneurs flying from a dozen countries.

This was my BIG project at work. And I was behind on selling enough tickets and planning the logistics.

The week or two before a big event is always stressful. But I’ve never felt like this before in my 7+ years of hosting gatherings - I wondered why?

The event happened. Everything was (so predictably) fine.

Everyone made it to the venue safely. The 4-days flew by. The attendees gave the event a 9.1/10 NPS score.

It would have been nice to have sold more tickets but for a first-time event, all was good.

However I felt exhausted afterward.

I scheduled a week of vacation afterward to relax and recharge. I chose to go to Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca for a solo retreat.

Little did I know what would transpire from these days of solitude.

My first solo retreat - August 2023

I arrived to Mexico with no set plans but with a few intentions:

1. Yoga and meditation every day
2. No technology (or as minimal as possible)
3. No attempt to be social with others
4. Do whatever feels good in my body

Switching off from go-go-go mode to doing completely nothing was incredibly difficult. It was like my body didn’t know how to do nothing.

Yoga was healing, but I could still feel my mind racing. Thinking. About random shit.

I journaled. I read books. I read my old journals over the last 3+ years. I explored my “possible futures” tab. I walked along the beach every evening with no headphones for hours.

With no social media, no emails, and no people to talk to, things slowly started to calm down.

It wasn’t until the 3rd day that I felt like I could hear my voice again. My body felt more relaxed and loose. My nervous system was slowly regulating.

On the 4th day, I felt like my inner consciousness finally woke up.

• It was the first time I realized that perhaps my event hosting for entrepreneurs days served me well for one era of my life, but it may not be the most aligned thing for my future
• I had put aside any creative endeavors to focus on my day job. But with all this free time, I leaned into a video idea I've had to poke fun at the gentrification problem in Mexico City. I filmed myself and edited the clips in 30 minutes. I posted the video after my retreat and it reached nearly 1,000,000 views on Instagram, becoming the most viral thing I’ve ever done
• I had neglected my physical health that year so this was the first time in a while where I really noticed the tightness and sensations of my body. I’m reminded every time I do yoga why this practice is so mentally and physically healing.

It was the 5th day when I allowed myself to ponder what thing I would like to do instead of my job–something I had never considered at that point.

My job looked great on paper: great colleagues, positive mission, serving good entrepreneurs. But after filling up a whole journal worth of thoughts, my mind finally caught up with what my body was trying to tell me all along.

I desperately wanted to do my own thing.

But why haven't I seriously pursued this yet?

It was the 6th day when I realized that instead of starting my own business, I convinced myself to keep working in adjacent roles like being a COO/Chief of Staff type for early-stage startups.

Why?

Those jobs felt safe. And objectively it is a great setup.

A remote job with wonderful colleagues, lots of flexibility, health insurance, and a decent paycheck.

Sure I wouldn’t do this work in my free time, but if I focus hard on my job, I can spend the rest of my free time doing whatever I want.

Pretty rad, right?

The thing is that I’ve had this kind of setup for most of my career. I realized that I’m going to be working for 30+ years and if this continues, I’ll be trading 40 hours a week, every week, for the rest of my working life.

If I’m going to work hard, why not take the risk and be rewarded for my business?

I had always wanted to have my own lifestyle business–just like the entrepreneurs that I’d followed have done.

If I play my cards right, I’ll have a business that’ll support my living costs in 1-2 years. And maybe a decent business in 3-5 years. And maybe a thriving business in 6-10 years.

I realized that it was time to bet on myself.

It was the last day during the taxi ride to the airport when I decided that I needed to leave my job and pursue this dream.

The Great Pause

You might have experienced a similar feeling when COVID happened.

Everything stopped. The world collectively took a giant pause. And we had time to truly reflect for the first time in a while.

• Why am I still in this job?
• Why am I living in this place?
• Why am I staying in this relationship?

Guess what happened?

People left their jobs. People moved. Couples broke up or doubled down.

When we’re rushing all the time, we don’t have time to seriously ask ourselves life’s more important questions.

So we go along with the status quo. We don’t change what’s kind of working. We’re too comfortable.

But it’s in the comfort where we MUST pause and ask ourselves: are my previous decisions aligned with this current and future chapter of my life?

Because if we don’t ponder beautiful questions like these, we’ll spend years of our lives climbing the wrong mountains.

I don’t want to live a life where I’m on the figurative “top” of mountains I don’t care about - do you?

You have to choose your path. Otherwise, life will choose it for you.

My quitting turned out to be a win-win for my employer, timing-wise funny enough. We've always been on the same page and we agreed to do one last project.

Write a book about fundraising.

I wanted to leave the company on a high note and I absolutely crushed this project.

We gave the e-book away for free and collected over 6,000 emails in 48 hours. Entrepreneurs and VCs were sharing it non-stop on Twitter and LinkedIn.

I had never experienced “viral” growth in a book before. But I felt so so so proud of my work.

I said my good byes and quit my job in February. I started scheming my own business in March. Then I took another solo retreat to reflect / plan for the future.

My second solo retreat - April 2024

I’m back in Puerto Escondido again to get away from the noise and be by myself.

• I did yoga every day again
• I journaled about this new chapter of my life
• I thought deeply about how I wanted to build this business

There weren’t any life-changing insights during this retreat. And that’s ok - I wasn’t trying to force that.

I just lived my life for a week without any distractions and just noticed whatever came up.

If something interesting came up, I had the time and freedom to explore.

Like I revisited my “favorites” playlist of YouTube videos from 10+ years ago. Watching Smosh and Timothy Delaghetto and Kobe Bryant highlights brought back such good memories.

Most of these rabbit holes were explored just for fun. The majority of them weren’t “productive” and I didn’t get any direct ROI from them.

But that’s OK.

I’m not trying to be efficient or productive.

I’m trying to relax. Recharge. Explore. Be curious. See things from a different perspective.

The one thing I kept journaling to myself was to properly honor the scary, hard, unknown journey I was embarking on.

I don’t know where this business is going to go.

I don’t know if I’ll ever make a living off of dance.

I don’t know if more people will want what I’m offering.

But it’s a step in the right direction. I trust in myself to figure things out as they go.

In an “ideal” world, we’re taking good care of our health every day. Journaling, reflecting, and reading. You know - all the self-care things that keep us from going insane.

As you know, life gets busy. It’s easy to let these things fall off. These retreats give me a “reset” both physically and mentally. To make sure I’m still going in the right direction.

And to make time for the most important relationship in my life: the one with myself.

My third solo retreat - December 2024

I’m writing this post during my 3rd solo retreat back to Puerto Escondido.

The business is going better than I expected, though I had stupid low expectations to begin with haha.

What came up for me during this retreat was more personal.

Some beautiful questions I explored:

Where would you want to live long-term? Or is there a short-term solution that suits you better for this next chapter of your life?

• I’m transitioning out of the classic nomad lifestyle and into more of the focused entrepreneur. I want stability to find a routine that prioritizes my health and work productivity.

Do I want to keep casually dating or enter a relationship?

• I’m seeing the beauty of what happens when you commit to something as I’m building my business incrementally every day (instead of tinkering with 5+ ideas at once).
• I’m starting to be convinced that a monogamous relationship would be a more fulfilling and promising decision for me instead of always having my options open.

What activities do I personally want to do at work?

• What am I most excited about doing? What are the things that I don’t enjoy as much but must be done? What are the shiny new objects that I must avoid to stay focused?

Some things I explored:

• Healthy masculinity
• VISA requirements to live in Europe or Asia
• What it’s like to live in different places around the world
• Tattoo ideas and inspiration

Some books I reread:

• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
• Do What You Live or Die Trying by Blake Boles
• My old journals and blog posts, to see where my mind was a year ago today

Some journaling:

• Creating a “vivid vision” of where my life will be in 2025
• Writing my Personal Year in Review
• Writing my Business Year in Review that I shared with some mentors
• Writing my biggest takeaways after reading Four Thousand Weeks
• Writing this blog post about the power of a solo retreat
• Writing the next blog post about how sabbaticals have transformed my life
• What’s most important in my decision to choose where to live next
• Lots of entries about how I feel in my body
• Things I’m proud of myself over the last year

Some things I did:

• Muay Thai classes (this was new - in line with my health goals)
• Yoga classes
• Watch the sunset every evening
• Process my thoughts and feelings with ChatGPT (not 100% accurate but stupidly underrated)
• Deep work on my business - doing a lot of the “boring” clean-up things to set me up for success next year
• Slept at 10PM/11PM every night and woke up at 6AM/7AM every day with no alarm

Heal your mind, body, and soul with a solo retreat

I’m not an Eat, Pray, Love nut. I’m not trying to sell you on my $5,000 retreat experience.

But these solo retreats are a breath of fresh air (literally).

I finally give myself uninterrupted time to do what’s best for my mind, body, and soul.

For one week, I give myself permission to not feel rushed to do anything. To explore whatever’s on my mind. To listen to my body and do what feels good.

If you’re someone like me who loves to be busy with work and social plans, I highly recommend taking a week on your own to relax and recharge.

Your solo retreat might not look exactly like mine–you can design your experience to what suits you best.

Or you can just do absolutely nothing and see what comes up for you. This is definitely harder to do, but probably the most rewarding.

How to plan a solo retreat

Find a semi-secluded place that gives you comfort and peace

• If you want to be next to a beach in Mexico, you can also consider Mazunte or Chacahua, instead of Cancun, Los Cabos, and Tulum (all too touristy). If you want more mountains and greenery, I recommend San Cristobal de Las Casas in Chiapas.

Get your logistics moving

• There are no perfect times to go on a solo retreat but I prefer to go during a transition period of my life like a new chapter of my life, starting a new year, etc.
• Request time off from your work
• Book your flights in advance to find the best deals
• Bring as little as possible. Just a journal, a few books, and some clothes should do.

Set intentions, but let go of plans or expectations

• Go in with an open mind. Get lost. Be bored. Let your mind wander. You may be surprised by what may come up for you.

Good luck. If you go, I’d love to hear how it went for you - @mrtampham.