“FOCUS’ed” Reflection

Reflection practice is a critical part of our self-development.  It helps to build our curiosity that is, helps us to facilitate new thinking, and empowering us in our own development. 

Practicing reflection is the opportunity to think about the past, explore what happened, examine how it made you feel, and assess whether it was positive or a challenging experience and consciously deciding to take action to do more of or less of or stop.  Reflection works best when we practice it regularly and while it may feel uncomfortable at first or your reflections may be at a high level, over time you will be able to go deeper with your thinking and identifying patterns where things are working well and opportunities for change. 

Reflection practice should happen at two levels, firstly daily reflection to capture thinking, feelings and actions on a regular basis while they are at the forefront of mind.  Secondly, each month you should set aside a reflection action session as a time to reflection on your reflections. 

Here are some key tips for practicing reflection:

·       Be proactive - Schedule dedicated reflection time into your diary

·       Be purposeful - be deliberate in your thinking for the purpose of reflection

·       Be agile - use different scenarios to reflect on to get depth across your experiences

·       Be courageous - the best results are when reflect with honesty for growth

·       Use a journal to capture your reflections in a central place

Want to know how to be focused, use our Focus’ed Reflection Model.

• Feelings - What feelings / emotions am I noticing?

• Opportunities - What do I want to do more of / differently / improve?

• Celebrate - What is working well?

• Understanding - What understanding do I have about ‘Self’ (my thoughts, emotions, behaviours) and how this influences my effectiveness?

• Strategies - What actions am I committed to take from here? What help / support do I need?