I thought I would elaborate a little further on my 'Christmas Reflection' blog, about self-reflection, what it is and why it’s important to take time to self-reflect.
Taking time out to set yourself new goals, self-reflection is a great way to start your journey with self-reflection.
What is self-reflection?
Self-reflection is taking time out to look back over previous events to learn and improve on actions taken. This could be thinking back over goals and achievements, reviewing how you got there and the outcome. Or looking back over a situation, how you handled it and reflecting on your attitude and feelings at that time.
Benefits of self-reflection
Self-reflection helps narrow focus, highlight areas of improvement, and help individuals to reach their goals.
Other benefits include:
Reduces stress levels
Taking time to understand what has gone well and what has been a challenge can help you in future situations. Being open to adopting a mindful and productive approach can ease feelings of stress and uncertainty.
Improves relationships
Self-reflection gives you time to assess relationships as well as situations. Practising self-reflection is beneficial for evaluating how you feel about the relationship, rather than simply being reactive.
Allows for better decision making
Time is invaluable when making decisions, and practising self-reflection gives you the opportunity to think about your decisions, before you make a decision.
Creates room for growth
While it may feel uncomfortable to look back on some experiences, particularly challenging ones, acknowledging your previous actions, what you’ve overcome and what you’ve learnt as a result, enables you to move forward with an empowered and fresh outlook on life.
There isn’t a right or wrong way to practise self-reflection. Depending on how much time you put aside and the environment you’re in, you can use different methods to complete your practice. Self-reflection is different for each of us.
Keeping a daily and weekly journal is a great way to ask yourself some basic questions in order to assess how you are doing and what areas you might need to focus on more.
I use the following questions:
Daily reflections may include:
Weekly Reflection
Your questions may differ depending on your issues, or situation. Simply write your answers down in a journal to get an overview of how you're progressing over time.
Self-reflection is a lifestyle choice. It is something that can be used in all situations. It is also something used to identify areas of your life that you feel you should change. It is particularly useful for working through your experience. Once you have it, it's something that stays with you for life.
Source: https://www.thisiscalmer.com http://www.basicgrowth.com
I found this blog very interesting. I have never consciously practiced self-reflection, but I can see looking back and assessing our feelings, with a view to positively changing things for the present, can only be a good thing.
I guess many of us do it sub-consciously as we learn from experiences but taking time out to reflect in a more mindful manner is likely to be more fruitful.
Thank you! Sadly, unless we actively tap into our sub-conscious thoughts, and those work in unison with our conscious thoughts, we may never have access to them.
The mind plays tricks. We tend to paint our past experiences through rose-coloured spectacles, which is why self-reflection helps.
We cannot rely on our past experiences, unless we have full access to all of those. It's not just the experience, it's how that experience made you feel and what the outcome was.