Self reflection
The Key to Personal Growth and Understanding
Reading time: 5 min
To the comments
„Become who you are“
This powerful quote calls us to discover and express our true selves, which begins with getting to know ourselves.
However, true self-awareness goes beyond just knowing your preferences; it involves delving into the reasons behind your thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Why should we practice self-reflection?
Self-reflection can reduce stress by helping you understand your emotions and making better decisions. It helps you live more consciously.
By reflecting on you experiences and actions, you can avoid repeating the same mistakes.
This can also impact your personal relationships.
Reflecting on your interpersonal interactions helps you empathize with others and adapt your communication to different situations more effectively.
Seems logical: if you understand your feelings and emotions better, you can also better accept and comprehend the actions of others.Self-reflection leads to improved self-awareness and development. This, in turn, affects your self-confidence and demeanor, making you more successful and content in the long run.
Regular reflection and processing of experiences will help you develop stronger resilience.
You’ll be less vulnerable to negative events, whether they are the feelings and reactions of others, bad news, or even fateful events.
This requires self-criticism and dealing with your mistakes. And, of course, this can be very painful, which is why many people prefer to avoid self-reflection — a grand mistake.
So much for the why. How often should you practice self-reflection?
⏱️ The frequency of self-reflection can vary depending on your individual needs and goals.
However, I recommend to integrate regular reflection practices into your daily life.
Short daily reflections can help you consciously end the day and gain insights
With deeper weekly or monthly reflections you can focus on larger and long-term goals.
💡 For example, if you have an evening routine, in which you conduct a daily reflection, five to ten minutes is enough to mentally go through your day’s experiences and analyze your actions and feelings.
Read more in the upcoming article about routines. Subscribe so you don’t miss it.
If you’re not the type for such things or can’t integrate it into your evening, you might consider a weekly review on the weekend.
Take about half an hour or even more to think about how your week went.
☝️ But also ask yourself if you can still remember the previous Monday well on the weekend.
🧠 In short:
A daily reflection is useful when you want to understand yourself better.
A weekly is especially helpful to reach your long-term goals.
To make it even more effective, you can use certain tools.
📖 Diary:
If you use a diary in your evening routine, it’s one of the most effective methods for self-reflection.
If you’re thinking, “I’m not the ‘Dear Diary…’ type” — it doesn’t have to look like that. You don’t have to use your diary as a fictional friend.
Just write down the thoughts that occupy you and that you want to keep as support or for later reflection.
💡 For example, you can simply make a list with bullet points, each bullet point being a topic that you want to think about more deeply.🧘 Meditation:
Meditation helps calm the mind and focus on the present moment.
Meditation requires some practice and also an understanding of how to meditate correctly.
But if you find meditation easy, you can incorporate it into your evening schedule before bed.🤔 Self-reflection questions:
Answering specific questions can guide and deepen the reflection process.
💡Examples of such questions are:
- “What did I do well today?”
- “What could I do differently next time?”
- “What am I proud of today?”
- “What annoyed me today and why?”
If you like to work digitally, you can create a Notion template. Fill these out accordingly and use them later for reflection, for example during your annual review.🙏 Feedback from others:
Getting feedback from trusted friends, colleagues, or mentors is gold!
I mean it!
They provide valuable insights about how they see you.
It’s important, of course, that these people are honest with you and that you are open to their feedback.
It doesn’t help if you don’t accept constructive criticism or don’t convey the feeling that you really value the feedback.
Can self-reflection be learned?
Of course. And with the tools described above it is not that difficult.
💭 Mindfulness is a general prerequisite for staying in the present moment and becoming aware of your thoughts and feelings.
In short, mindfulness is a state of awareness in which you consciously direct your attention to the present moment without judging it — one application area therefore is meditation.
It’s about perceiving your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations without falling into automated reactions or distractions. I will publish a separate post on mindfulness.
⏱️ Moreover, self-reflection requires regular practice. Set fixed times for your reflections to make a habit of it.
For example, you can use the mentioned template with standard questions to review and analyze your day as part of your evening routine.
🧘 Patience and honesty are also essential. Don’t rush the process of self-reflection; it’s a long and ongoing one.
Be honest with yourself in your reflection but don’t judge yourself; just be open to your insights and accept them to learn from them. Self-reflection should not become a mental burden.
To reflect on yourself honestly, you need a certain level of self-awareness, open-mindedness, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence.
Just give it a try and be open to a long process.
Self-reflection is a powerful practice that helps us understand ourselves better, promote personal growth, and make better decisions. Through regular reflection, we can strengthen our emotional and mental abilities and lead a more fulfilling and successful life.
With the right techniques and conscious practice, anyone can benefit from self-reflection in the long run.
I wish you much success and hope you gain great insights about yourself.
Now to you
Have you already had experiences with self-reflection? How do you manage this process? What tools do you use for self-reflection?
Feel free to share your experiences and insights in the comments, as it helps me and other readers.
Please leave a thumbs up if you enjoyed the post.
Thank you and see you next time.
Leave a thumbs-up