In my last blog post, I made the case for regularly pausing to reflect. Reflection contributes to our self-awareness, helps us keep on top of our commitments, and allows us to be more intentional as we go about our day.
Having read it (right?!) you might already be saying to yourself “Of course I reflect – I think about how I’m doing all the time!”. You might be right. You might have a really helpful reflection habit in place. Or like so many of us, you’re doing something else entirely.
Several activities might look and feel like reflection, but they don’t fulfil the three criteria of reflective practice:
- Looking back at a given time-frame
- Self-evaluation, considering how you acted
- Identifying changes based on the previous two steps
Let’s briefly walk through them so you can spot when you find yourself stuck in one of these habits and identify an alternative approach.
Rumination
This is unwanted and repeated thinking about past events. Common examples could be revisiting past disappointments and failures. Rumination takes us away from the present moment and can lead us to experience unpleasant emotions associated with the past. Emotions that can really influence our experience of moment we’re actually in.
Going over and over that argument in our minds can make us feel the anger and frustration all over again. How does this differ from reflection? Rumination is a kind of mental loop without an obvious exit, whereas reflection helps you identify a learning point from the negative experience. It also allows you to draw a mental line under it and move on.
Prediction
Your mind is just as good as bringing you to an unpleasant future as it is at dragging you back to the past. And where rumination focuses on what happened, your predictions are frequently about things that may never happen at all! Just like rumination, predictions can leave you feeling awful in the present moment and even dissuade you from taking helpful action. In contrast, reflection helps you identify what you’re going to do as a result of what has happened previously. It’s not about controlling the future. It’s about identifying what’s in your control and influence, to make the future an even more attractive place.
Self-criticism
We all have an inner critic, that internal voice that is only too ready to remind us of our mistakes, to talk down our skills and abilities, and make grand pronouncements about how well we’re doing in general. Simply listening to your inner critic narrows your focus to the negative aspects of our performance and, just like rumination, doesn’t offer you a path forward. Your inner critic rarely boosts your mood or motivation. Reflection can acknowledge where we got it wrong, but it also illuminates a way out of challenges and setbacks. And avoids the harsh self-judgement too!
Reading
Coachees often share with me just how much personal development content they’re reading. All the popular books, the blogs, the magazines. They’re reading, but still don’t see any change in their habits or attainment of their goals. They’re frequently puzzled or even frustrated by this. And that’s because reading doesn’t magically change our behaviour. It’s a little like focusing on acquiring more and more knowledge, without actually putting the insights to good use. Reading can be a really valuable source of inspiration, but without actively linking the insights to our existing perspectives, as well as experimenting with new approaches, it’s not going to change anything.
Tracking
When you want to cultivate a new habit, or make an adjustment to your existing routines, tracking the habit is a great approach. Whether it’s with a specialist app or a simple notebook, tracking gives you a visual representation of your behaviour over time, which may not be something you usually do. But it’s not the same as reflection if you don’t look at these data and ask yourself what these patterns tell you. If you’re inconsistent with the new habit, what does this tell you? Or if you’ve maintained it for several weeks in a row, how do you think and feel about that? Data is a great start, but needs interpretation and action to bring it to life.
So lots of what we might label ‘reflection’ actually falls short of the definition. If this post resonates with you, check out recent episodes of My Pocket Psych, where I outline how to build a simple reflective practice and make it a habit. You can also join WorkLifeSpark, our online personal development community, to check out the resources that support reflection, self-awareness and development.
