Reflection

Two years, three months, and over 100,000 words later. It is hard to believe that this will be the 50th blog I have written. I didn’t start writing these thinking I would find a long-lasting platform. I started writing these blogs because I felt I had something to say. More to myself than anyone else. I never thought the words I had written up to this point would make an impact on the lives of others, but there is no better feeling than someone reaching out to say that one of my blogs made them think, feel, or act upon something to improve their life or someone else’s. Sitting down before or after work and writing on topics I am passionate about has brought more to my life and the pursuit of being the best version of myself than I ever thought it would. I have found that each one of these writings has now become a tangible piece of a lasting legacy that I can hold on to until the day I die. These writings are something my kids, and their kids, and their kids can read through to understand the person I was in my pursuit to get the most out of the time given to me by God.

Most importantly, these writings have been a place for reflection. These blogs are spoken from real-life experiences and more often than not, those experiences are ones where I have made mistakes, I have tried to learn from them, then I write about what I have learned. That is what reflection is all about in the first place. It is the opportunity to assess the messiness that pervades our everyday lives and try and understand how we can become better, knowing that we will never reach the finish line of perfection.

Reflecting on experiences and uncovering meaning is an essential part of learning. However, me telling you to sit and reflect isn’t helpful. I think effective reflective practice is different for everyone. These blogs have forced me to slow down and be a little more deliberate, but what works for me is not necessarily going to work for someone else. I do have three questions I always ask myself that helps me foster a practice of consistent self-reflection.

What happened?

Describe the situation in your mind, write it out, or talk about it with someone. You want to set the stage and answer the ‘what, where, when, and who questions. I like to think about how I felt during the experience and identify why I had those feelings.

Why does this matter?

Reflective practice also pulls us out of the rabbit hole of what-ifs that we all stress ourselves with. 99 percent of the time, we stress about situations and scenarios that won’t matter in a week let alone impact the rest of your life. Even we can learn from seemingly insignificant situations though. Try to answer the question, ‘So what?’. More often than not, if the answer to the so what question is not life-altering, then there probably isn’t as much to worry about as you originally thought.

What are the next steps?

Prepare for how you would handle a similar situation in the future. What will you do differently next time, if anything? The point of this stage is to learn from your analysis. Depending on the context of your reflection, this could be a deeper understanding of a topic, a broader perspective, or an improved way of doing something.

What I have realized is, for me, deep learning was an accidental occurrence, rather than a deliberate process. Reflection is about being more deliberate. We can all be a little more deliberate when looking in the mirror, and true bravery is being willing to face the worst parts of ourselves head on knowing we can always do better and be better.