Reflection - A Powerful Practice for Tuning in with Yourself

Looking back at my progress throughout the past 4-5 years of my life, I can't help but notice one of the key factors in my growth, if not the biggest factor, has been self reflection. I know it might sound weird and confusing to reflect on yourself and your life. You might say "I don't wanna look at the past, why cant I just live life and decide what I wanna do as I go?" Well... you definitely can just live life without reflecting on what you do. But, I find that many people who live their life this way while not taking a step back to think about where they've been and where they want to go, end up not seeing the progress that they really want to see.

I believe the key to this progress is self reflection.... and it's actually really simple. One reflection practice I really like in particular is journaling. This involves setting a period of time out of you day (maybe starting with 5 minutes) to write down on a sheet of paper whatever is on your mind. You don't necessarily have to write about the past - just write literally whatever comes up and don't stop moving your pen until you reach the amount you want to write or the period of time you want to write for. I notice that when I do this, my thoughts just begin to flow. Ideas come in, realizations happen, and I really begin to get to know myself more.

After you've tried journaling one, twice, or a few times, and you begin to feel comfortable with it, you might want to step it up a notch. One way to do this is to start by asking yourself questions through writing. Haha pretty silly right? Writing to yourself? Hey...but it works.

You can start with simple questions like "How am I feeling today?" or "What do I want to get done today?" or "What is the biggest thing I want to improve on right now?"

Then you can start to pick it up even more: "What is one quality that I love about myself and why? and What are the activities I love doing?"

Finally, I want to introduce an even more structured way of reflection and questioning that you can do at the end of each week and/or month. Many people like to start with the month and then eventually get to individual weeks. Here are some questions I love that were inspired by "passionplanner.com." These questions are "What was my most memorable moment from this past month? Describe it." "What were the three biggest lessons I learned from this past month?" "How am I different this past month than the month before it?" "What things/people/experiences am I most grateful for this past month?" and "What are three areas that I can improve on this upcoming month and what are a few actions steps for each?"

Answering these questions will allow you to visually see these thoughts on paper and make yourself conscious of them. One answer might act as the crucial reminder you needed of your special gift of kindness.... or making people laugh.... or you name it! And another answer might make you want to go out and take action on your goal, or make you want to call your mom, or it may even make you smile!

I'm sharing this practice with you because of the profound impact on my growth it has had on me. Reflection has made my years, months, weeks, and even days so much more intentional. And isn't that what everyone wants more of in their life - purpose, clarity? Well those are exactly a few things that reflection has elevated in my life and I really hope that you can experience the same! :)