Do you know that self-reflection is such an incredible practice to help you improve yourself? However, you might ask how to self-reflect effectively?
Self-reflection is one of the practices I’ve been incorporating into my daily routine.
It helps me to see my progress and identify what more I can improve within myself. Not just that, self-reflecting is also a practice I do consistently to get to know myself better.
Last week, we kicked off our Knowing Yourself Series by learning how to practice self-observation and you worked on it by noticing what you observe about yourself each day for 7 days.
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I’m so happy and proud of those who participate and share their experience with me through email! You can join our community too by signing up for the workbook!
In this post, you will learn what self-reflection is and why it’s so important. Also, you will find out simple ways to self-reflect and journaling prompts you can use today for self-reflection and self-discovery.
This is part 2 of our Knowing Yourself Series! If you are new here, you can catch up and read our previous topics:
- Knowing Yourself Series Introduction: Starting a Journey into Self-discovery
- Knowing Yourself Series Part 1: The Power of Self-observation
What is self-reflection and why you should do it?
Self-reflection is an exercise to help you assess your thoughts, emotions, and behavior. Reflecting on ourselves gives us a “productive pause” as it will help us to analyze how we are actually doing.
Last week, we talked about self-observation. You might think, self-reflection and self-observation are kinda similar.
Well, here’s a thing; self-observation is being aware of your emotions, feelings, and behavior, while reflection is like interacting with your awareness and carefully evaluating those things you observe.
90% of our thoughts are repetitive!
Comaford mentioned in her Forbes article that according to the research of Dr. Fred Luskin of Stanford University, every one of us has approximately 60,000 thoughts per day, and 90% of these are repetitive
Yep! 90% of what you are thinking right now might repeat the next hour, next day, or next week!
Crazy, right?
That’s why reflection is so important.
Learning how to self-reflect will help us sort out our thoughts. Think like seeing all your thoughts in front of you. That way, you can cross out the one you already addressed and solved, and figure out what next needs to be settled.
Self-reflection is also important to help you get to know yourself better. Reflecting on yourself will help you uncover a lot about yourself such as your fear, beliefs, and goals.
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3 Ways to Self-reflect
Learning how to self-reflect doesn’t have to be hard and intimidating. In fact, you can do this even in simple ways! Here are my suggestions on how you can self-reflect:
1. Take a walk
Taking a walk is so therapeutic especially when you’re in nature. It is hard to reflect and evaluate your thoughts, feelings, and emotions when there are a lot of background noises. Taking a walk will help you be present in the moment which is a great time to self-reflect.
2. Sit in silence
Another way on how to self-reflect is by simply sitting in silence. This could be while you’re sipping your morning coffee, having dinner, or before going to bed. It’s important that you are not interacting with any outside noise such as listening to music but only in total silence.
3. Journal
Journaling is also one of the best ways to self-reflect. We’ve talked a lot about journaling in this blog and we all know that keeping a journal has been a proven way to help you sort out your thoughts and give yourself mental clarity.
10 Journaling Prompts for Self-reflection and Self-discovery
Because journaling is one of the effective ways to learn how to self-reflect. Here are some thought-provoking journal prompts that will help you reflect inward and discover more about yourself:
- What makes me feel safe?
- What scares me the most?
- What do I need more in my life?
- What fear do I want to get over?
- What am I good at?
- What would I like to get better at?
- From mindset to the physical level, how have I changed in the last five years?
- What are the things I would like to do more and consistently to improve myself?
- What are the things I need to stop doing that make me unhappy? What can I do to stop it?
- What would I do with my life if money and other people’s opinion wasn’t an issue?
If you need a guide on starting a journal, I have a post about it to help you! Read it here.
You can ask yourself these questions every once in a while to get the most out of it. These prompts are included in the self-discovery workbook that I’ve created, so make sure to check it out.
Your Turn!
Now that you know the importance of self-reflection and how you can do it, it’s time for you to practice it!
On the workbook, you can find these journaling prompts which you can work on answering one question every day. This workbook is available for FREE and you can download now!
Stay tuned for part 3 of this series where we will talk about knowing your core values! This one is a really fun activity!
What journal prompt you found interesting? Do you have some other tips on how to self-reflect? Let me know in the comments below!
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Jocelyn is a coffee lover who believes that a bad day with coffee is better than a good day without it. You can find her obsessing over stationery, hanging out with her cat, or singing her favorite Taylor Swift songs.