Recently, one common topic I have found among several influential people that I follow is self-reflection, which seems to be the key to their thoughtful personal development.
While self-reflection is not unheard of or not something unfamiliar to most including me, it really struck me recently after I attended a session by Erik Torenberg on strategizing your career. Many others have also attributed to this practice, their ability to continuously assess and improve their life. If you know me, I am always working on many things big and small at the same time, and focusing on one thing has been a struggle.
I revisited other instances where I had come across self-reflection and did some research to understand how to better prioritize the things in my life. Here are some things I found consistent across the practice:
Labor is a craft, but perfect rest is an art. It is important to completely be with yourself and not interact with people or devices (mobiles, laptops, and even headphones are out) during this time. It should be a no-input period where you can sift through your thoughts and spend time with them without any distractions.
When just starting out, it might seem boring and you might want to go back to checking your email. With practice and some persistence, thoughts and ideas will flow and it would become easier to differentiate between the observations and judgments. This takes a significant amount of time, however, the return is massive in terms of focusing on the right things and finding your true interests.
Taking time for reflecting should not be out of the blue, but intentionally planned. It can be through long walks, traveling on a weekend, a longer vacation, therapy sessions, or even just sitting for an hour by yourself.
It is imperative that you would break the rule and check your phone sometimes. But that’s okay — you can always shut it down. It is important that you don’t judge yourself and push to focus on your ideas.
Successful reflection will help you pinpoint the things that matter to you — you will have resolved the conflicts, you will know which reflections to continue and which to break, you will establish new boundaries with your family and colleagues, and you might even decide to leave your job and start a new career.
It is about finding your own voice between all the clutter and then realigning yourself with your goals and ambitions. While writing this, I realized how much this makes sense. There are many unresolved ideas and plans in my head that are stored for weeks and probably, the biggest source of stress and anxiety. All of us would probably have unconsciously been in moments of reflection where we just start thinking about random thoughts. Going ahead, I want to try this with more intention and try to measure the changes.
If you are someone who has found intentional self-reflection useful or may be thinking of spending time on it, I’d love to hear from you.