Sep 17, 2020
Engaging in Productive Self-Reflection
Self-Reflection is one of those concepts that’s always been around in our lives. In one form or another, our parents, teachers and others have always asked us to practice it. As far as a definition is concerned, Self reflection is a way of assessing yourself. This could include anything, from one’s actions, how you study, and so on. To put it simply, reflection, in true sense, means to think about something related to yourself. This concept is well known to enhance your personal and professional growth.
Here’s how you can engage in Productive Self-Reflection:
- You have to be honest with yourself. You’re not doing yourself any favours if you aren’t 100% honest with yourself about how things are going or how you are behaving.
- Notice behavioural patterns in yourself. We are all creatures of habit. Some of these habits are helpful while others may not be so helpful. If you’re aware of your habits, you can actively work on weakening the ones you don’t want. Similarly you can strengthen the ones you do want.
- You should try to articulate your core values. This means that you should take time to consider what’s most important to you so that you have your priorities in check. By using this as a parameter, you can better evaluate whether or not you’re living up to those values.
- Always remember to be forgiving. Change is hard and old habits are harder to break. Be gentle with yourself when you don’t get it right. We’re all human and naturally, we all make mistakes.
- Keeping a track of your self-reflection is really useful. You can maintain a journal where you record your observations and monitor your personal growth. This will help you distinguish exactly how much you’ve grown personally.
More and more people are turning towards this practice nowadays. However, it is important to note that one must not get obsessed with it. In that case, people always tend to be overly critical of themselves and things take a negative turn. Self-reflection that becomes critical soon leads you to make a comparison with others. You tend to start believing that you’re falling short, and reinforce false ideas about yourself. Ideas like feeling you’re not good enough. The whole point of Self-Reflection has always been to lead us towards eventual positivity and happiness.
Harman Singh
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