Reflection as a superpower for growth

Welcome

Here you'll find my infrequent musings and reflections on all things that impact our beliefs and potential.

19 August 2021

I don’t know about you, but when it comes to certain things, I often make the same mistakes again, and again, and again (ahem, relationships anyone?!). But here’s the thing, just like our successes our mistakes can be valuable lessons if we let them.

Learning what to repeat and what not to is clearly a good thing – it makes life far more fun and rewarding. So what can we do to ensure we repeat the success but not mistakes?

Reflect.

It’s so easy to do and it’s all about considering our successes and failures each and every day:

1. At the end of the day review the good and not so good things from the day. Did you have a row with someone? Maybe you got great feedback from your boss. Work through the whole day’s events.

2. Note the cause of each outcome. Was the row something you could control? If you rowed because the other person has tight deadlines and they’re stressed and projecting, that’s out of your control. But if you rowed because you woke late and were grumpy – there’s something you can do here to stop this kind of row happening again.

3. Learn from this. You can avoid these rows by getting a better sleep, going to bed at a more reasonable time, taking better care of yourself to get a better quality of sleep and perhaps setting your alarm a little earlier.

4. Take action. Develop a self-care routine. Get some exercise. Prepare meals to save time and beat the convenience of junk food. Set your alarm earlier to avoid being late. These small and super simple things add up to make a big difference in your life.

5. Visualize success. Imagine yourself reaping the benefits of these little changes. Imagine how good you’ll feel.

6. Remind yourself of what might happen if you don’t do what you’ve planned. Remember how you felt when you started the day off with a row, and how those feelings rippled out and seeped into the rest of the day’s events. Feel the pain of not making these small changes.

7. Check your thoughts and feelings and reframe where necessary. When we think the changes we want to make are too hard, it’s going to feel much more difficult to implement. What you think influences your feelings, and what you feel influences your behaviours. You see where I’m going here…

8. Keep a tab and celebrate your results. Are you eating better? Are you making time for exercise? Are you getting better sleep? Waking easier? Arguing less?

New habits take a short while to form and become automatic behaviours. Keeping small, daily promises to yourself is key to succeeding. Keep honing your process until you’re happy with your results. It’s normal to adjust and adapt as you go.

How simple is this? Once you’ve cracked the daily reflections, it might work best to do a weekly review instead. See how you go.

Reflective thinking enhances all areas of our life. There’s value and lessons to be found in pretty much everything.

Share this post:

Créer une ligne verticale en HTML