5 Tips for Better self reflectionHappy Wednesday, everyone! I cannot believe that March is nearly over and that Spring, despite the weather in the city these days, is finally here.

I’ve been in an incredibly self-reflective mood lately, especially after my 21 Days of Self Challenge. Prior to that, I’d never really taken the time to intentionally reflect on myself – who I am, what my passions are, or things that I’m not pleased with myself about. Self reflection is incredibly an incredibly eye opening and thought provoking process.  It makes you reach into those deep parts of yourself that you may normally avoid, or that you didn’t even know were there.

Being intentionally self-reflective, especially when you aren’t used to doing to habitually, can be difficult to implement into daily living. Here are five tips for making it happen smoothly:

1. Do it as often as possible. Whether you spend a few minutes in the morning meditating or writing in a journal, whenever you can fit in time for self reflection, make it happen. Once you find a time that works for you, try to stick with it, and fill that time with different self-reflecting activities.

2. Find your quiet. This was one of the most important parts of my self reflecting journey. Finding your quiet simply means discovering the environment that allows you to truly and fully self reflect. Finding your quiet does not mean sitting in silence – it could include playing music or having a movie play in the background. Customize it to what works best for you, and helps you center and focus.

3. Include others in your self reflection process. I know this seems a bit off – self reflecting is supposed to be all about self, right? Well, right. But we tend to be very tough on ourselves, and it is easy to over scrutinize every small thing we do or thought we think. Share some of your reflections with a friend that you trust, ask if they observe the same things about you.

4. Resolve issues at they come. During my period of self-reflection, I realized things about myself that weren’t exactly helpful or desired. When these things come up, I found I usually had 3 options – accept it, change it myself (or at least start the process of change, which takes time and focus), or seek help from someone else. Focus on deciding on a course of action right away, even if you have to wait to take next steps. The longer you wait, the longer the problem exists.

5. Challenge yourself. Take risks, step outside of your boundaries and get real with yourself. Ask yourself those questions that you normally avoid because they don’t live in your safety realm. Are there rules that you live by? Are you living by them to make your life better, or because you’re afraid to live any other way? Really crack your code, and dig beneath the surface of who you are.

Knowing who you are is an incredibly powerful thing. It enables you to think differently and live freely. I hope these tips allow you to dig a little deeper and really get to know yourself.

Do you intentionally self reflect? How often, and what have you discovered about yourself?self-reflection-pin

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8 Comments

  1. Lovely post, gorgeous. I’ve always found that in the past it was when I STOPPED reflecting and just zoomed by on ‘auto-pilot’ that one day, I would suddenly wake up, and think, “What’s happening here?” and feel this HUGE disconnect with who I *really* am.
    THAT right there is the reason why taking time to tap in, ask myself questions, listen to my intuition moment-to-moment is so incredibly important for me.

  2. Wonderful tips! I’m glad to hear you successfully finished that challenge and feel happy about it! Lately I had so much other stuff to do that I barely have any me time (Which I crave, by the way) so I decided to attempt 100 happy days challenge (if you haven’t heard of it: http://100happydays.com/ ) starting April 1st. I’m actually planing to publish a post about it on Monday!