Embracing Self-Reflection: Celebrating our Triumphs
As 2023 comes to a close, many people start reflecting on the past 12 months. Here are a few reasons why self-reflection is so important for our overall well-being.
The Importance of Self-Reflection
Self-reflection is the practice of examining your actions, experiences, and feelings. It involves looking inward to understand yourself deeper, and learn about your beliefs, values, and motivations. By self-reflecting, you can assess your strengths, identify patterns in behaviors/thoughts, and gain insight that leads to personal growth and change.
As you enter the last week of the year, starting reflecting back on 2023. Ask yourself the following questions: What were my biggest challenges? What were my biggest accomplishments? What did I learn? What achievements make me the most proud? Am I prioritizing what I want to be doing vs. what I feel like I should be doing?
Feel free to simply think about these reflections, or try journaling and writing down your thoughts each year, so that you can look back at the growth you’ve made. There is such power in reflecting on your achievements. We tend to forget our accomplishments, and remember our struggles. If you actively remind yourself of all the amazing things you’ve accomplished this year, you may be surprised about how many there are! Even if those accomplishments feels small or insignificant, give yourself credit for completing them. Embrace the achievement, sit in the joy, and share with others your personal growth of 2023.
Overcoming Self-Criticism
Self-criticism is something that many of us tend to battle with on a daily basis. You may be able to easily recall several times you made a mistake, but struggle to remember the time you succeeded. By encouraging self-compassion and highlighting your achievements, it allows the self-critical voice to quiet down. By quieting the self-critical voice, people often feel more confident and secure in themselves, and are able to combat feelings of imposter syndrome or inadequacy.
Setting Intentions for the Future
Once you have reflected on your year, begin thinking about intentions for the year ahead. Rather than setting specific goals for 2024, try identifying intentions for your behaviors instead. This could be identifying a word or phrase to live by (ex: compassion, pride, brave, kind, etc.), or overarching approaches to work/personal life/relationships (ex: I intend to approach relationships with an open mind and focus on communication, I intend to approach work with strong boundaries and focus on developing my career path). Allow yourself to find excitement and hope for 2024, but don’t pressure yourself to do too much, or set goals that are unrealistic.
Self-reflection is necessary for personal growth. It allows us to gain self-awareness, recognize our strengths, and identify how to make meaningful changes in our lives. It can lead people to living a more fulfilling life, and allow the self-critical voice to seem insignificant compared to the abundance of accomplishments and successes. Try to find a few moments this week for self-reflection, or even have friends/family join you in recognizing each person’s accomplishments.
Written by: Piper Benjamin