The Importance of Reflection

Reflection is an important process that successful leaders and achievers have used to learn from the past. Reflection is a way of making learning conscious, to get to the heart of the matter, the core, the absolute truth.

What is reflection? It is more than just looking back, it is thinking back. It is dreaming, journaling, discussions, reviewing performance, getting critiques, going on retreats, and really understanding the broad picture and perspectives around events of your past.

Freud said “the goal of analysis is to make the unconscious conscious.” Reflection is the process to accomplish this goal.

When should you reflect? What should you reflect upon? Unfortunately, too often it’s people’s failures that get them to reflect upon their experiences. When people are going along in ‘the zone’ and everything is clicking for them they don’t make the time to sit down and reflect. Yet this is exactly when they should be reflecting. There is just as much to learn, if not more, from what you are doing right as from what you have done wrong. So why wait for things to turn the wrong way before you start to reflect on them. Reflecting on the negative experiences is definitely a learning tool, but it is best to do once you have gotten past the emotions of the event, and you certainly do not want to dwell on the negative experience. You want to mentally and emotionally put yourself in a place where you can view the event with an eye for how to turn the negative into a positive the next time you have this experience or challenge in front of you. And always try to see all the moments of triumph and when you were correct as well as the mistakes. Don’t let the mistakes be the overriding focus. Keep a balance in your reflection of both your positive and negative events.

A thousand things happen to us each week, but most of us only seem to remember the few mistakes we made and forget our achievements, because we don’t reflect. Instead we just react. Because of this our lives are shaped more by the negative experiences than the positive ones. Yes, I know this is a hard cycle to break, but here is a little trick to try and break this cycle; When you are down start thinking of all the positive things you have to look forward to, this will lift your state of emotions. When you then get yourself out of the negative grip of the mistake event, then you are ready to reflect on it with a goal of learning from it. Mistakes contain important lessons, but only if we think through them calmly, notice what went wrong, mentally think through what changes could be made to avoid the mistake, and then act on those revisions.

A great path to success is through reflection coupled with strategic action. I love the comparison that just as writers turn experiences from their lives into novels and plays, we can each transform our experiences into the foundation of learning for our future success.

True reflection inspires, informs, and ultimately demands resolution.

Author's Bio: 

One generation must pass the torch of wisdom on to the next.

This site is all about the Wisdom, not who the provider is. This is so that you can use your imagination to associate your own personal truths to how the wisdom fits in your life, instead of having it presented as part of someone else’s truth and how it applies to their life. We all have our own truths and create our own realities with our beliefs, so this site is geared to present the wisdom in a way where you can focus completely on how it fits in with your beliefs; because your truth is why you are here in the first place. Your truth is what’s important to you right now in this present moment.

This page is not about me, or about promoting another content provider in the Personal Development industry (or what I like to refer to as Personal Success), but instead is about collecting and spreading wisdom, knowledge and experiences to the public. As someone in the Personal Success industry everyday I spend time studying, learning, and collecting wisdom from so many great leaders of our past and present. I sift through it all looking for the best, and have found many great insights that have helped me succeed in my endeavors. I believe this collection of wisdom should be shared with everyone, and not be held closely guarded by the few. As I come across inspiring wisdom I will share it here with you.

As this wisdom is presented on the site, I will do my best to decipher and interpret much of it, but then the real growth for all of us comes in the discourse and debate as we all create and share our own truths in each piece of wisdom. From differing opinions, differing perspectives, differing truths come a collaboration that pushes all wisdom further to a deeper understanding for all. This is good, this is healthy, and this is how we learn and grow our lives to become the image of greatness each one of us is pursuing.

Some of the wisdom you find on this site might be exactly what you need right now, as something led you here at this present moment. Other times what you find here might not fit a need in the moment, but I believe there is a time when you will find it comes in handy in your future endeavors.

The power of it all lies in learning how the wisdom, knowledge and experiences that are shared fit into your life. Thus this site is not about some personality teaching you how it works in their life, but it’s about learning it with your own face and mind attached to it from the start. It’s about creating your own image with you as the star. Wisdom will only truly make you wise if it fits with your truths and plays into your journey in finding your greatness.

Let’s share and spread the wisdom we learn. If you find something useful and inspiring, then sure be it that others you know could get the same benefit. So be a purveyor of wisdom and help pass the torch to others. The best wisdom comes from experiences, thus we all have wisdom to share.

Wisdoms Torch……pass it on.