When you think about self-improvement, there are probably many things that go through your mind. Perhaps you think more of reading self-help books or talking to a professional about your issues, while other people think of using a journal or get into more detail-specific suggestions.
Self-improvement does not have a right or wrong way. It is all about improving your own life, maintaining health and happiness, finding your strengths and weaknesses, and making small changes in your life to change your mindset and improve your life as a whole.
What you consider to be for self-improvement might be completely different from someone else. However, one thing that is the same for everyone is how useful it is to first practice a little self-reflection. That is what you are going to learn about today.
Why Self Reflection?
First of all – self reflection does not have any rules or boundaries. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to do this. It should be for your own benefit, therefore you want to do it however you feel comfortable.
Just What is Self-Reflection?
Self-reflection is a way to look at your life, examine your actions, and ask yourself questions that will help you understand more about yourself. It is easy to only think of your own thoughts and motivations on the surface level.
You are so busy just trying to live life, that you don’t often take the time out to understand why you are doing certain things – or not doing them.
With self-reflection, you go much deeper to really understand yourself and your feelings. In turn, this can help you gain a better understanding of where you might be going wrong and how to improve your life. It is used for many things, from weight loss to improving mental health conditions like stress and anxiety.
Self-reflection can also improve your feelings of self-worth, helping you to gain confidence, and achieve your goals. And of course, as you will learn in the next section, it is also very helpful at helping you to work on your self-improvement journey.
Benefits of Self Reflection for Self-Improvement
Let’s move on to the next most important part of self-improvement, and that is looking at the unique benefits of self-reflection. As you already learned, self-reflection is going to help you become more aware of your own motivations and influences, which is what is going to help you on your self-improvement journey.
Here are some different benefits of first becoming more self-aware before you move on with your journey to personal growth and enlightenment.
You can Find and Reduce Negative Patterns
The first reason self-reflection can help with self-improvement is because it helps you to find your own negative patterns. Everyone has them, so don’t let them get you down. The important thing here is to identify them so you can work on changing these patterns.
Negative patterns can be everything from unhealthy lifestyle habits related to lack of physical activity, addictions, or poor diet choices, to getting involved in toxic relationships. You want to think about every facet of your life, including your professional and personal life, to figure out what these patterns are.
It Allows You to Define Your Goals
Thinking of your short-term and long-term goals is not as easy as it might seem. The first thing you need to do is figure out what your dreams are, which are often entwined with your goals. Allow yourself to think outside the box and get a little unrealistic first.
This helps because you are able to not only see what your goals are, but through this process, you discover things you never knew you wanted to achieve. Once you have selected your short-term and long-term goals, you can then work on a realistic approach to achieving them.
Find Good and Bad Influences
There are good and bad influences in everyone’s life, but people don’t often realize them right away. It is possible that your lack of personal growth is not from you, but from being surrounded with people who aren’t necessarily supportive of your goals for success.
Is there someone in your life who never lets you discuss where you want to be, makes you feel unworthy, or is more subtle where they just avoid the conversation altogether? These are signs that they are not going to be supportive, therefore they become a bad influence.
On the other hand, you should also focus on people or things that are good influences in your life. These are people who make you feel motivated and inspired.
Face Your Fears or Anxieties
Lastly, self-reflection can help you discover your different fears, anxieties, and insecurities. These might also be keeping you from self-improvement in the way you want or need it. Perhaps you have a fear of success, or through self-awareness questions, you find out that your anxiety is keeping you from really putting yourself out there. There is a lot you can discover just by asking yourself a few questions.
Identifying Your Need for Self-Improvement
Self-improvement is one of those things that everyone strives for, but not everyone realizes how intensely they need it. Are you still on the fence, and a little unsure if this is the right path for you? If so, here are some of the more common signs that you should continue on this journey of self-improvement and self-fulfillment.
You Have Few Genuine Friends
Having friends in your life, even in small numbers, are much more important for your own health and wellness than you might think. Genuine friends you can talk to about anything and everything, lean on, and get support from help your mental health and can actually motivate you to better yourself, as you motivate them to be their own best self.
If you find that you don’t really have any close friends, only acquaintances, then it might be time to first look at yourself and your own life to determine why that is. This is a common sign for needing to practice more self-improvement and get to the root of your friend problem.
You Have Very Little Patience
Patience is a virtue, and not everyone has it. But don’t use that as an excuse to just let this one go and ignore it as a sign that maybe you should work on yourself more. Patience is not something everyone has an easy time with, but if you find that your patience is becoming shorter and shorter as time goes on, there might be some type of
internal struggle you were not aware that you were dealing with.
You have Worsening Unhealthy Habits
Unhealthy habits are another sign that it is time for some self-improvement practices. These can be anything that you feel is hurting your physical or mental health, from substance abuse and food addiction, to procrastinating or not getting enough physical activity.
Many people find that when they start self-reflecting and working on themselves, those unhealthy habits are few and far between.
You are Losing Interest in Things
This can also be a sign of depression, but also a sign that you are in need of a little self-love. Losing interest either in things you used to enjoy, or lacking the motivation to better yourself is the exact reason you should be trying in the first place. It is a sign that your life is missing something – passion. Passion for your dreams, passion for life, passion for people and things around you.
How to Get Started
Are you ready to practice some self-reflection? The good news is that there is no right or wrong way to do it, as it is flexible to each individual. It is something you won’t do all in one day, but keep working on so you can continue on your self-improvement and personal growth journey.
Ask Yourself Reflective Questions
The easiest way to start is to ask yourself some questions that will allow you to be more reflective and self-aware. These are similar to using prompts where you look at a question or statement that gets you to think about something in a different way. Here are some questions that might help:
- Are negative thoughts impacting my life in a negative way?
- What do I complain about the most?
- Have I set any goals for myself?
- Am I working to achieve those goals?
- What did I do today that could have been done differently?
- What am I currently struggling with the most?
- What is something I am doing to HELP my personal growth?
Write in a Journal Daily
Journaling is one of the best tools for self-improvement in general, but especially when you need to become more self-aware. You can use the journal when asking yourself the above questions, but also to just write in it every day about your thoughts and feelings.
Try to turn this into a regular practice, whether it is part of your morning routine, or you bring your journal with you to write in it while waiting for your kids to get out of school or when you are on a break at work.
Be Honest with Yourself
It is absolutely essential that you are honest with yourself! Self-reflection is not something you need to share with anyone else. By keeping it personal and private, you are able to be honest with yourself and really get to the bottom of where you are going right, and where you might need some improvement. If you can’t be honest with yourself, you are only going to keep yourself from being your best self.
Keep Checking in with Yourself
Since self-reflection is something you will do over a long period of time, you should keep checking in with yourself. If you first wrote in your journal a month ago, now is a good time to check in and answer the same questions you answered before. This will allow you to see how far you have come, and what areas still need some improvements.
Make Time to Self Reflect Every Day
The final thing we want to discuss is when and how to self-reflect. As we mentioned, this is something you can continue doing every day or week, not just a one-time thing. It is important that you make time to reflect on a regular basis, preferably every day.
Here is how you can make it part of your daily routine:
End Your Day with Self-Reflection
For self-reflection, it is good to do in the evening near the end of your day, preferably in your journal. That way, you can check in with your progress and look at how you want to change your habits or mindset for tomorrow.
Check in with these questions:
- What is something you did today to help your self-improvement?
- What is one thing you could do differently tomorrow?
- Did you discover anything new today?
- Are the people in your life being supportive?
As you can see, there are many ways to approach this. The purpose is to look at your life, not just what happens to you, but your own actions and the motivations behind them.
