You may be asking yourself what’s self-reflection and how can I do it? I’m glad you asked; self-reflection is meditating on yourself and your life. People do this to improve themselves, their lives, and their well-being. In this world, we prioritize money, relationships, work, and anything but our emotional, mental, and physical health which are equally as important. You are the star of the show in your life; when you improve yourself you improve your life. The first step in practicing self-reflection is getting to know yourself.
When I was on the journey of getting to know myself better I asked my closest friends to tell me things they liked about me and didn’t like about me, some of what they wrote I must say surprised me! Now I know what you might be thinking “since when did people’s opinion matter?”, they matter when these people love you and have known you for years they know you better than you know yourself most of the time because our best friends can point out things in our behavior that no one (not even ourselves) can recognize half the time. Write down your traits(even the negative ones), your likes and dislikes, your goals, and what in your life makes you happy, and what doesn’t. As well as what you can do to change these negative traits or situations in your life that you’d rather do without, how can you withstand them and how can this make you a stronger, wiser, and better person if you can’t change them? etc.
Journaling is self-reflection because in your journal you bear your soul; you write about your life, hopes, dreams, and your personality/emotions come out in your writing. When you re-read your journal you’ll notice things about your personality, what you enjoy and don’t enjoy, and what matters to you. You’ll notice your flaws or things you may want to improve about yourself and your life.
Make a list of things that you are grateful for, gratitude is a medicine for discontentment. It will make you happier and thankful; because believe it or not there are so many things to be grateful for in life. Thinking out loud or talking to yourself (when no one is looking of course) is also a practice of self-reflection; you may be thinking “No, I’m not doing that! that’s for crazy people!”, but actually doing this in private is actually quite healthy, it’s like journaling without pen and paper basically. You can obviously talk to your best friend or someone you’re very close to as well.
No matter where you are in life, self-reflection is important because it helps us understand ourselves and our lives better thus improving ourselves and our lives. In your free time go to a quiet, secluded place, take a pen and paper out, and think/write about anything you are feeling or going through at the moment. It may not seem like much, but I promise that if you just pour out your heart about your day or a negative circumstance you are experiencing you will stumble upon solutions, you will feel better, and know yourself better.
