Self-Reflection & Your Personal Growth: 3 Tips To Help You with Your Reflection.

I hate to burst your bubble but hey someone has to right. Experience is not the best teacher. Yes I just said it it, give me a chance to explain this further. Experience is not the best teacher but evaluated experience is. When one keeps falling into the same trap over and over it means they haven’t taken the time to stop and reflect. Reflection turns experience into insight. When you take time to reflect on your days, weeks or months you get to know whether or not you are on the right track with your goals. We are in the second quarter of the year, are you headed towards your dreams or the opposite direction? Only taking time to reflect will help you answer this question. Studies have shown that reflection boosts productivity. In his book, 15 Laws of growth, John Maxwell says “Learning to pause allows growth to catch up with you”, That’s the law of reflection.

Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From quiet reflection will come even more effective action
Peter Drucker

If you are going on the wrong road, you do not need motivation to speed up. You need to stop and get on the right road. That is reflection, it helps you take the correct path when you have drifted away. Taking time to reflect helps you to discover, develop define and deliver. Practicing refection takes discipline and intentionality.

At the end of each day, you should play back the tapes of your performance. The results should either applaud you or prod you
Jim Rohn

Table of Contents

Benefits of Reflection

The lack of reflection causes us to simply keep running, trying to keep up with things even if they are not going well. Without reflection we tend to get stuck in jobs, careers and relationships that are not necessarily the best for us. Some benefits of self reflection include;

taking you back to align with your core values
allows you to gain perspective
helps you to respond more effectively
encourages big picture thinking
promotes better relationships
helps you strategize
improves your emotional intelligence
boosts your productivity
helps you make better choices.

How To Effectively Practice Personal Reflection

Now that you know the importance of refection in your life, you might want to know how you go about reflection. I would like to provide you with some guidelines on how to reflect but at the end of the day one should use the best strategy that works for them.

Effective refection is about asking the right questions, that is the core of reflection.

Have a designated place for your reflection time. Figure out what kind of environment is conducive for you. If its your daily reflection being in a quiet room with a desk and chair or in your bed might do the trick. Going to an outdoor area and reconnect with nature might work well for your monthly reflection or yearly reflection.

2. Schedule Time to pause and reflect. For your daily refection it might be at the end of the day before you plan for the next day. For your monthly reflection, pick a day on your calendar and schedule a time for it.

3. Ask the right questions. Cartoonist Henri Arnold said, “The wise man questions himself, the fool others.” You make yourself intentional by asking yourself tough questions. Is there an issue that you can’t seem to wrestle down? Are you experiencing a plateau in your career? Are you failing to win at the most important relationships in your life? Do you need to examine or reexamine your purpose? Whatever the issue is, create questions around it.

I hope these tips will help you on your self reflection journey. When we fail to reflect we get caught up in things that don’t matter and we loose perspective for our life.