In the world we live in, everything happens so fast. Minutes turn into hours, hours into days, and days into weeks! It can sometimes feel like months of your life have gone by without you being completely present. This would happen to me all the time, but once I started practicing the art of self-reflections, I’ve been able to keep in pace with the events in my life.
What is Self-reflection?
Self-reflection is the process of sitting down to assess and think about ones own behaviours, attitudes, desires, and, life in general. It’s how you look at the past and project into the future. You see what you’ve done and can then use this knowledge to plan what you need to improve or keep doing. This self-reflection allows you to also ask yourself why you did or do certain things. Needless to say, there are a bunch of different possible benefits of self-reflections!
Why is it good for you?
Practicing self-reflection has allowed me to keep up with myself. At the end of each week, I practice keeping a journal in which I write as much as I want and need to about the week. This practice forces me to sit down and think about the things that have happened during the week. It allows me to visualize the things that occurred during the week and how they’ve impacted my life and my health. Did something make me happy, or did something stress me out? By writing about what has happened and my reactions, I’m able to better deal with and recognize my emotions and be more mentally present in life.
Another benefit of the weekly reflection is that it allows me to see in which areas of life I am doing well or in which areas I need to improve. For example, by seeing that I haven’t been able to get a lot of my to-do list items done, I know I should replan and revisualize my goals and make sure to motivate myself to do better.
This self-reflection also does not have to happen on a weekly basis. It can be as often as you need it to be. You can include anything you’d like and personalize it according to your own focuses and priorities in life. For example, for students the self-reflection could mostly include thoughts on academic and career goals. Self-reflection has allowed me to break free from living an unexamined life where I had no judgment on what had happened and no projection into the future of what I need to do.
We all live busy lives, so to practice self-reflections, we have to actively allot times throughout the week or month to do this. It can seem tedious at first, but after a while of doing this self-reflection, it becomes something you look forward to. You enjoy these sessions of recollection and want to get as much out of the process as possible. So, if you feel that your life is flashing before your eyes and you aren’t really capturing the right moments, try to practice keeping a journal of self-reflection!