The importance of reflective practice
Most of us want to become the best version of ourselves, in both personal and professional lives. A good way to unlock your potential and grow continuously is self-reflection. I strongly believe that embracing and using this method has been instrumental in my journey for self-improvement.
The importance of self-reflection
Reflective practice implies taking a step back and scrutinizing your actions, decisions, and experience, allowing us to learn from them and apply these lessons in future situations. It also helps us cultivate self-awareness, improve decision making, and grow professionally and personally.
For curious and ambitious individuals, self-reflection might come naturally. It can challenge you refine areas of improvement and exceed your own expectations. I use this powerful tool to constantly evolve.
It’s critical for people leaders to integrate reflection practices in their work routine. There’s numerous ways to do this. Here are a few suggestions that I use depending on context:
Seeking feedback - Regularly asking for feedback from peers, team members, managers can offer invaluable insight that you might have missed.
Coaching/mentoring - Working with a coach or mentor can provide an external perspective to help you reflect on your leadership style.
Reflective discussion - Encourage reflective discussion in your team meetings. Sharing and learning from each other’s experiences can promote a culture of continuous learning.
Reflective models - There are several models that you can use to guide your reflective practice:
Kolb’s learning cycle - It proposes we learn from our experiences through a four-stage cycle of concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation.
Gibb’s reflective cycle - A more detailed reflection model, this framework includes stages of description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan.
Schön’s model of reflection - This model distinguishes between reflecting after the event (reflection-on-action) and reflecting during the events (reflection-in-action).
Self-awareness - Conducting an informal personal SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) can help you understand your traits and areas that need enhancement.
Performance-tracking - I maintain a working document that tracks my main deliverables, their outputs, and their outcomes. I regularly go back and review this to identify trends, evaluate my time management, and determine areas for improvement.
Reflective practice is an empowering process. The journey to bettering oneself is not a sprint, rather a constant process of learning, unlearning, and relearning.