A Time for Reflection

The word, reflection, among other definitions, describes a situation whereby a person engages in serious thought or deep consideration of things that have happened in the past with a view to identify success areas and those for improvement, expansion, etc. At the end of the year, a lot of people, including groups, organizations and institutions take time out to reflect on their experience/performance during the months past with a view to planning for a better future. When the reflection exercise is done personally, it is described as self-reflection.

With self-reflection you take time to think about your life and your purpose, as well as your place in the world. You question the choices you have made in life, in the past year(s), or along career and business lines and as you do so, you run a check on whether you are still living true to your own values and achieving your goals. It is a very valuable exercise for personal development and growth.

Carl Sandburg puts it this way: “A man must find time for himself. Time is what we spend our lives with. If we are not careful we find others spending it for us. . . . It is necessary now and then for a man to go away by himself and experience loneliness; to sit on a rock in the forest and to ask of himself, 'Who am I, and where have I been, and where am I going?' . . . If one is not careful, one allows diversions to take up one's time—the stuff of life.”

Jeff Cobb shares a few of the ways reflection can impact your life and your learning:

1. It helps you learn from – and get past – your mistakes

“I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work,” Thomas Edison is often quoted (or perhaps misquoted) as having said. You can bet Edison spent time going back over his mistakes and failures, but he did it as a means of finding his way forward to future successes.

2. It helps you learn from – and celebrate – your successes.

We can and should learn from our mistakes and failures, but there is also evidence that we may learn more from our successes.  In any case, there is not much joy in living and learning if we don’t take time to acknowledge the things we have done right – and build upon them.

3. It helps you make connections and generate new ideas.

When you take time to think back through your experiences, you almost inevitably begin to see connections among them that were not obvious at first. One thing always leads to another when you are reflecting, and before you know it, you’ve got a great new idea – whether for a convenient, affordable way to provide light to the average household, like Edison.

4. It helps you to help others

Ideally, those connections you see when you reflect include connections to others. No learner is an island. How can you share what you’ve learned and how you have learned it in a way that benefits others? I think that simple question tends to be the foundation for so many successful personal relationships as well as businesses and nonprofit initiatives. And it all starts with reflection.

5. It gives you perspective and helps you relax.

So many of us, myself included, live lives that are overly busy and flooded by a continual stream of new information. We make mistakes, get overwhelmed, and succumb to stress. Taking a few minutes daily to reflect, though, has an incredibly calming effect. It can help us put all of our efforts into perspective. Living and learning are not about some grand, ultimate goal. They are simply about learning and living. Relax.

How to Achieve Successful Self-Reflection

1.   The Purpose: Why do you want to engage in self-reflection? Is it that things aren’t going right with you or it about assessing the performance of your goals? It is also important that you be precise about what your self-reflection will be centered upon. Will it be about your academic pursuit? Career or business? Relationships? Faith? Weight loss? Or what?

2.   Seclusion: Self-reflection is actually, a lonely exercise. You need a quiet place, devoid of distraction to successfully engage in self-reflection. You may need some writing materials to jot down ideas and revelations that come to you as you reflect in time and experience.

3.   Self-Talk: Self-reflection has also been described as an opportunity to engage your senses. You’ll be doing a whole lot of thinking, something like a total recall, on the purpose(s) of your self-reflection. As you write them down, you will confront yourself on areas where you need to provide answers. It may sound like some ‘out-of-body’ experience but remember, it’s just you and nobody else, so the only pressure on you is from you. At this moment, you cannot lie to yourself because you need to get everything out, and frankly too.

4.   Read: You can utilize the period of your self-reflection to read about people who may have had your type of experience and how they got through theirs. When one is ‘in the dumps’, it seems like you are the only one who’s been through it…until you find someone or others who has/have. Their story can be a great help to your outcome.

5.   Take Action: Start with the good times. Counting your blessings is a great way to stay encouraged and strengthened. A grateful heart sees every experience as a gift. Why and how did you succeed? Then, courageously, list out the ‘not-so-good’ times with a careful review of the situation. What went wrong? By whom? How can we avoid a recurrence? A final step would be to chart the way forward, bearing in mind that someone just may be a beneficiary of your journey.

So, we’ve come to the end of another year. How have you fared? At Teens+, we’ll be taking time off to reflect on our mission. How have we impacted your life with our weekly exhortations? We have had raving reviews and gotten involved in quite a number of counseling interventions but will that translate to a success story?

We intend to take a cue from Ashly Lorenzana: “Even if you think you're doing well and have it all figured out, there is a voice you will always inevitably hear at some point which nags at you and says "but wait..." Don't ever dismiss it, listen to what it has to say. Life will never be close enough to perfect, and listening to that voice means stepping outside of yourself and considering your own wrongdoings and flaws.”

As you plan for the Christmas season, the festive period, and holidays, set aside some time for reflection. You need to take an assessment of 2018 (or even earlier) and put together your plan for 2019. Here’s wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and an awesome New Year 2019 in advance!!!

Acknowledgment: www.wikihow.com