I often think about how quickly certain days, weeks, and even years go by. The times I’ve hustled because, well if you don’t hustle you don’t want it bad enough right? I’ve learned now, at 41, you don’t need to hustle to be successful. You need to be smart, mindful, and reflect on what you’re doing in order to succeed in your own journey.
So, when is it a good time to reflect?
Well, people tend to reflect on two specific times of the year. On their birthdays and New Years’. Why? Because these are the times in our lives we tend to take a moment to think about what we’ve been focusing on and what we want to change.
Reflecting on ourselves and the decisions we make is beneficial to our growth and understanding why we make certain choices and how we can be better and do better. With the constant buzzing of our phones and the black hole of social media, and just living in such a fast-paced world, we often forget to just sit in thought and reflect on the things that really matter and the things that will make us grow.
It goes without saying, practicing self-reflection takes discipline and requires you to pause and simply take the time to think about your life. And it needs more attention than just twice a year.
Reflection doesn’t require pages and pages of writing. You can break it down into daily, weekly, and monthly reflection questions like these:
Daily Reflection
- Did I use my time wisely today?
- What is the best thing that happened today?
- Did I engage in self-care today?
Weekly Reflection
- How much time this week/month have you spent on caring for yourself?
- What habits did I focus on this week?
- How can you bring more self-care into your day?
- How can you improve your health and wellbeing this week/month/year?
Monthly Reflection
- How can I bring more self-care into my day?
- How am I spending my spare time? How would I like to spend my spare time?
- What are my top priorities right now?
- Does my work fulfill me or drain me?
These are just a start to get those thoughts flowing, but you can see how important self-reflection is.
When we self-reflect, we can…
- Learn what actually brings us joy
- Discover our strengths
- Find out what needs improvement
- Enhance our leadership skills
- Build stronger relationships
- Learn how to strategize
When we fail to reflect on our lives, it can be easy to lose perspective and get caught up in the superficial things that don’t serve us. Don’t lose sight of the things that are most important.