Art of More Self-Reflection
14 Methods For Self Reflection
Methods of Personal Growth <-> Methods of Self Reflection.
This isn’t true for everybody, but the constant cycle between the pursuit of personal growth and self-reflection leads to an endless upward spiral of our potential. Here are some methods that can help us start our own perpetual cycle of growth and reflection.
Methods of Self-Reflection
1) Consider Your Morality - The only certainty in life is death. Yes, and taxes. But tax is boring. I listen to Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic podcast every day. Does this liken it to religion? The art of Momento Mori, a Latin phrase, translates to “remember you must die”. This can instil fear, for obvious reasons. What’s scarier than death, however, is not living a life true to yourself. Another aspect of this that helped the inevitability of death click in my head is what those on their deathbeds say they regret in life. Many wish they loved more, didn’t work as hard, and took more risks. Loving more comes from loving yourself, a prerequisite of which is self-understanding. People regretting working too hard I’d argue is a consequence of so many of us adhering to society's expectations of who we’re supposed to be. We’re supposed to dedicate our entire life to our work, aren’t we? Because as I discussed last week, if we don’t, what purpose do we really have? If we step outside societal expectations of ourselves, we are able to consider our dream life. Firstly ensure you’re not convincing yourself this dream is what you truly want. Do you want to play this game? Do you want the prize this game offers? If not, change the game. Pursue your dream. And dream big. Take a risk. When we grow old, we lose our teeth, our ability to move, our ability to write and listen. Before this point, pursue your dream, and I’m sure one day it will make an interesting story. We can depart with death willingly, knowing we are true to ourselves.
You arrive empty-handed and leave in the same state. Fake wants and goals such as money, and countless possessions, and hundreds of fake shallow relationships don’t bring us happiness. We distract ourselves with these elements of life as we run on a treadmill seeking to outrun death. By facing it, we make the most of every day. However, this motivation doesn’t come only from recognising the inevitability of death. We also need self-belief.
2) Meditation – Throw any stereotype out of the window you have about meditation because meditation can be anything you want it to be. Consider the five senses and their role in when you feel calm. I feel calm when I’m touching a soft surface, and when I’m listening to ocean sounds. I get distracted by seeing things around me, so I close my eyes. I usually meditate in a place where there are no strong smells, so I avoid the kitchen after I’ve been cooking. Finally, eating and meditating isn’t the best multitasking combination. Focus alone on the meditation and your senses. This helps create the ideal conditions for your meditation. I just lay there, take deep breaths, and think about whatever comes into my mind, or nothing at all. We can be the authors of our own meditation. For those who wish to learn from somebody else, there are also guided meditations through apps such as Headspace and Calm to help get you started. Meditation is an absolute game-changer.
3) Breathing – Wim Hof is the best in the game when it comes to breathing exercises. Don’t do them when you’re in water, or driving, as the breathing exercises can send you lightheaded. The exercises highlighted to me how incredible our bodies are. We can sit calmly, and hold our breath for incredible amounts of time, without forcing it. Wim helps us to achieve this. As a result, afterwards, I feel calmer, more focused, and more grateful after reflecting on how incredible our bodies truly are.
4) Journaling – The entire reason this newsletter exists is to act as a journal where I write reminders to myself when I’m struggling with a particular issue. We can reflect upon our past journal entries. Why were we feeling that way at the time? Did you later realise the underlying causes weren’t what you thought? How can you use any suffering detailed in your journal to grow and improve? Repeat this forever, and you’re on the path of perpetual growth and self-reflection.
5) Gratitude – Each morning, I write down one thing I’m grateful for. It could be absolutely anything, but the important thing is to let whatever you write consume you. If you’re grateful to have woken up today, go make the most of that. If you’re grateful for a friend who you spent a great day with yesterday, let them know how much fun you had. Reflecting on what to have gratitude for naturally raises our happiness. Sharing that gratitude with those we love helps us even more. Sometimes, self-reflection can be about exploring negativity, mistakes, or failures. Gratitude complements self-reflection by reinforcing the positive aspects of our life. It’s not a direct method to aid self-reflection, but it can help improve the quality of our self-reflection as we approach it with a more balanced mind.
6) Time Alone – I spend a lot of time alone. I have wonderfully deep relationships with my friends and family, and a reason I think these are so strong is because I self-reflect on understanding myself. There is no better time to do this when alone. Around others, I’m focusing on cultivating and developing these deep relationships. When alone, we can reflect on this, and consider areas for improvement to build deeper bonds with those we care about. In short, boredom is a good thing and we need to learn to not always distract ourselves. You have to live with yourself. So build a relationship with yourself and become someone you’d want to build a relationship with.
7) Questions For Mentors – In my phone notes page, I have a section called “Questions For Mentors”. If I ever look at a question I had in the past and now I believe I can answer it, I’ve been taking part in the personal growth-self-reflection cycle. If my page of questions reaches zero, I’m either not reflecting enough, or I’ve surpassed my mentor and I need to pursue another.
8) Decision Trees – I love a decision tree. Usually used in assessing the probabilities of an event in Mathematics, we can use them in our own lives. If you have a decision you need to make, start with that as a point at the root of a tree. Draw lines from this original point for every potential option to you. If you decide an option isn’t one you want to pursue, that branch ends there. Keep going until you can no longer extend the branches of your tree, or until you’re satisfied with one of the paths from the root of the tree to the end of a branch. This can help us clear our heads, and consider secondary and tertiary consequences, and beyond.
9) Self-Belief – When we have high self-belief, we have confidence in ourselves. We’re braver in our pursuits and approach these positively. We believe that even if we fail, we can learn from our mistakes and from future self-reflection. Over time, as we repeat mistakes and self-reflection, we get better at analysing our own thoughts and actions positively, thus creating a self-reinforcing loop of self-belief contributing to better self-reflection, and vice versa.
10) Reading – When I read anything, I write notes. These notes often stimulate deeper self-reflection upon returning to them. I can then ask, how does this note apply to my life? Why did this piece of text jump out at me, so much so that I noted it down for later? We seek to remember things that we deem will be important in the future. Look deeper and reflect on why we consider these things to be important. Are they actually important, or is some deeper bias or knowledge gap convincing us they are?
11) Expectations of Yourself - We can all fall into the trap of demotivating ourselves by setting our goals too high. This depends on what kind of person you are. I have quite a high level of self-belief. As a result, by setting an almost unattainable goal for my entire life, I find motivation. I seek to understand the world and the people in it. A rather lofty goal that I likely won’t achieve in my lifetime. Coupled with the inevitability of death, and a passion for writing, however, there always exists the lingering question in the back of your mind. What if I do? That makes it worth a try. Reflect on your relationship with motivation and goals, and cultivate goals that will naturally motivate you.
12) The Main Goal - Another important element of self-understanding and self-acceptance is to always be working towards the main goal that your habits contribute to. Delaying gratification and thinking of the big picture enable us to not sweat the small stuff. These issues can build up and seem bigger than they are. As
said in a recent piece, "Forget the medium term, it's a complete distraction."
13) Seek Mistakes and Problems - Mistakes = Growth = Better Self Understanding. One of Ray Dalio’s greatest principles, and now one of mine. Deeply analyse mistakes to ensure we learn from them and limit our chances of repeating them. Eventually, the chance of repeating the same mistake trends to zero. Even better than analysing your own mistakes, analyse the mistakes of others. That way there’s a chance you never make the same mistakes others did at any point in your life.
14) Have The Best Intentions - If we can’t fully understand ourselves, we can’t expect others to. Sometimes we have the best intentions, but we’re misunderstood. This is ok. Some are willing to listen, discuss, and grow together. Most are not. Distance from these people who have their ears closed, especially if it will hold you back. Never pass blame when you are in the wrong and admit quickly and apologise when you recognise you are wrong. But don’t take the blame for everything. Consider your role first, but don’t discount the role others can play in conflicts and disputes. If they are a person who won’t listen and enjoy conflict for conflict’s sake, they likely have a large portion of the blame to take. By always having the best intentions, it becomes clearer to see our wrongdoings, but also when we’re not.
Concluding Remarks
This post is already rather long, so next week I’ll have more methods of self-reflection. Thanks for reading!
Thanks Dan. Great actionable points here and thanks for the mention.
Let’s do a collaborative post soon?