How to Reflect on Your Past and Make Meaningful Changes in Your Life
When we speak of self-reflection, you can see it as a tool that gives you the opportunity to analyze your achievements, your skills, your flaws, your fears, your needs, your wants, your aspirations, your position in life, what drives you, and your thoughts. It's more like an advanced form of mental gymnastics that comes with a thorough analytical tool.
Self-reflection is a way to find yourself, it can help you start a major change in your life, propel you to take vital actions that are necessary for your growth and development, and assist in organization and planning. It can also help to calm you down, make you feel confident, identify your goal, and aid you to attain greater motivation.
This post contains a checklist of items that will quickly inform and guide you on how to reflect on your life.
Understanding Self-Reflection and Its Significance
Our everyday living and encounters gives us tons of opportunities to bask in self-love.
From window shopping to looking in mirrors, we're truly faced with countless occasions to adore ourselves and see how beautiful and amazing we are. While it's indeed alluring for us to see the beauty in appreciating ourselves for who we are, we should also invest a little time to shine an unveiling light on our consciousness and glance beyond our skin-deep presentations and outer legging-clad exteriors.
The Five Core Principles
Every transformational leader must develop the habit of reflection.
Reflection does help us to forge ahead in life, it helps us take actions, and to also focus on our spirit. Many reflect on their past prior to planning out future goals. But, before you start planning, it's very important that you look back with these seven core principles, for they're quite vital for your reflections.
Be Positive: try putting on a lens of positivity when reflecting on your past so that you focus only on the positive of your achievements or failures.
Be Perceptive: look at your past as though you are a psychologist, looking for insights into why you did or didn’t do something. Try being unbiased and empathetic.
Be Purposeful: what are your goals in your reflection? Do you want to understand yourself better or do you want to better yourself?
Be Proactive: once you reflect and have a better insight, use that towards writing out your goals, so they are specific and precise.
Be Passionate: understand that reflecting will not only help you heal your past but also help you create a brighter future. In the end this will help you stay passionate about your end goal.
Questions You Should Ask Yourself
Let's be honest with ourselves, it can be pretty scary when we're thinking of how we end up where we are, and we feel lost and without purpose. In fact, we risk losing the chance of being where we desire to be when we're not conscious of where we're going. Self-reflection ensures that you are fulfilled, and it can help to keep you in check with your life journey. Thus, there are some important
questions you must ask yourself frequently to stay en route of your path, and here are some of them;
Am I using my time wisely?
Am I taking anything for granted?
What perspective do I hold?
Am I living true to myself?
How do I wake up in the morning?
What do I think about before I go to sleep?
What efforts am I putting into my relationships?
Am I taking care of myself physically?
7 Ways to Let Go and Live a Happy Life
Leaving the past behind you is one of the best things you can do for yourself. What you become from now shouldn't be defined by your past events or experiences. You'll be able to achieve your goals and enjoy more success when you open up to a happier life by choosing to be positive, relishing in your happiness, and focusing on the present moment.
Here are the simple steps to follow to let go of the past:
Let the emotions flow: so often we bottle up our emotions until we feel overwhelmed and ready to burst. Express your emotions in a healthy way so that you can productively move forward.
Don’t let negative thoughts cloud your mind: it’s easy to let the negativity rule your thoughts, and they definitely start taking their toll. By allowing them to come freely without buying into them, you’ll find that they will quickly lose their spark.
Learn from your experiences: instead of being regretful of your past, learn and grow from it. What do you wish you could’ve done differently? What would you do again? Use this information to help you in the present.
Stop being the victim: it is easy to play the blame game, but by doing so we are giving away our power. How can you take back your power, so you can move forward?
Don’t wait for an apology: waiting for an apology that you may never get is not helping you in any way. Find a way to forgive (even if you might not) so that you can start to heal.
Expand your view of yourself: how have you change throughout your life? Understand that you are constantly changing and growing. By understanding this, the views you have of yourself will start to expand.
Live in the moment: focus on the present and be mindful that you don’t allow your thoughts to take you away to the past or the future.
How to Let Go of Toxic People in Your Life
Toxic behavior is what is often exhibited by a toxic person, and the more you keep toxic people in your life, your ability to heal from them may be hindered.
Toxic people misrepresent your worth, they'll misrepresent reality to you, and run from accountability. Nevertheless, take note that you'll only give room for toxic growth if you don't take necessary actions but allow your values to be dismissed by toxic people.
Whether the toxic person is your family member, friend, or partner, being in a toxic relationship with them will make you feel less good about who you are, here are four simple steps to follow in order to let go:
Recognize the red flags
Set boundaries
Invest in yourself
Know when forgiveness is possible
Many people who are suffering from emotional pain are often consoled with the expression "time will heal your wound" and as a result, a lot of people have accepted that very soon, time will wipe away their fear, guilt, sadness, anger, and anguish.
Nevertheless, not everyone is fortunate to find their wounds healed by time. And, a lot of people find it difficult to move on or let go at a particular point in their lives, irrespective of the fact that the passage of time is likely to ease one's pain a bit.
For us to heal more quickly, it's crucial that we do something to help ourselves, and here are a few things we can do:
Counsel yourself to let go and move on
Go out with friends and family
Learn a new skill
Engage in a physical activity
Plan a trip
Explore new avenues and see new people
Things That Will Happen When You Start to Let Go of Your Past
Letting go has never been easy, and we still often feel attached to the past because we're not sure of what the future holds and our level of comfort with the known is another thing that enjoins us to try to bear with the pain and hurt, rather than letting go. Letting go is a process that takes time, but when you make a decision to start the journey, you'll realize that some beautiful things will start happening to you. And here are some of them:
You will get to see a new positive version of yourself
You will make room for the new
You will handle new obstacles with grace
You will learn to love yourself first
You will inspire others
You will grow closer to your destiny
You'll naturally attract what you need
9 Practical Ways to Start Working on Self-Improvement
Self-reflection gives birth to self-improvement. Once you've been able to reflect and move on from the past, the next step is to proceed to improve yourself. Thankfully, there are several means to improve yourself if you care about your growth. As a human, you can be even better whenever you think you are good and because the human potential is limitless, you'll always find something about you that's worth improving. Here are some practical ways to improve yourself:
Read every day
Learn a new language
Pick up a new hobby
Take up a new course
Create an inspirational room
Overcome your fears
Level up your skills
Wake up early
Exercise weekly
Use Affirmations
Massive changes aren't what self-improvement is all about, at times, it can also be the little things you do. Nevertheless, take note that you'll need willingness, determination, and consistency to take on the challenge to improve yourself.
Comments