Goals
- Internalize why evening reflections are immensely powerful
- Get started on your evening reflection habit
Introduction
I'm a basic bitch. Not as in wearing yoga pants and Timberlands all day while going crazy for those pumpkin-spice lattes from Starbucks. I will never reach that level of coolness. Basic as in I believe in the power of basics. When trying to live a healthy life, debating the benefits of one alleged superfood over the other is kinda pointless if you don't even have the basics such as sleep, hydration, and exercise figured out. Something similar is true for self-reflection and a healthy mind in general.
There's plenty of stuff to try and do when it comes to self-reflection and personal growth. In my previous articles, I've given you lots of examples. But I made one fatal mistake: I forgot about the basics! You should block my blog and unfollow me immediately, there's no way to redeem myself at this point...
If however, you want to give me a second - utterly undeserved - chance, then let's find out why evening reflections are the perfect way to get you started on your journey towards living a more introspective and in the long run more fulfilling life.
A matter of mindset
Know thyself
Sounds old and wise. Actually, it is. Let's update it a bit:
Follow yourself
We follow all sorts of people online. And if you are like me, you are almost constantly consuming some form of media produced by those individuals. Listening to podcasts, watching videos, scrolling through Tik Tok. Being able to choose between endless streams of content is amazing. Of course, there are certain downsides, but let's skip this boomer-talk for now.
Self-reflection is kinda like following yourself. But not the version you put out there on social media. Following the real you, your inner stream of consciousness. How often do you do that?
A few minutes of reflection each day will - over time - make tuning into that stream quite effortless, which unlocks nice perks such as:
- Rarely regretting things. You'll know you want or not want something earlier when there's still time to react.
- Limit self-sabotaging behavior such as making the same mistakes again and again.
- Have more agency in your life. Knowing what you want is useful when trying to get what you want, who would have thought?
Evening reflections are quite similar to journaling, almost like journaling-lite. If you are already doing that: congrats! You'll have no problem incorporating the evening reflection questions into your journaling habit, and while both put you in a comparable mindset, they are not redundant. So keep on journaling as well!
How to do it
- Pick a few questions. I suggest one question that will help you to come up with a summary of the day, another one that makes you feel grateful for what happened, and lastly a question to pinpoint areas that can be improved. There's a handy list at the end of this article!
- At the end of each day, sit down and think about those questions for a couple of minutes. Write down your answers, because the last step is:
- At the end of the week, go over your notes, and reflect on them. Celebrate the victories and enjoyable moments, then come up with ideas on how to make the bad stuff suck a little less the next time around.
Secret hack! If you don't feel like doing it in the evening, you can also do it first thing in the morning, while planning the new day. Don't know about you, but I prefer not worrying about habits and self-optimization late at night. Those hours are reserved for quality time with friends, binging Netflix, and recharging after a long day. Mostly Netflix though.
Example Questions: Build-A-Reflection
Summarize the day
- On a scale from 1-10, today was:
- A word that would describe today is:
- Compared to an average day lately, today was:
- Today summarized in a simple drawing:
- Today's primary emotion was:
Gratitude
- A positive moment I remember is:
- Something I handled well was:
- A situation I wouldn't change anything about was:
- Something I learned today was:
- I was proud of myself when:
- Today's highlight was:
- What were my wins today?
- What moments am I grateful for?
- A challenge I handled well was:
- My favorite memory from today is:
Things to improve
- A negative situation I remember is:
- Something I could have done better was:
- A simple thing that would have made today better is:
- A missed opportunity today was:
- Something that would have helped me today was:
- I was wasting time/energy when:
- What didn't work as expected?
- How did my emotions/feelings work against me?
- When did I encounter resistance?
- I got stuck when:
- Regrets I have about today:
- Could I have been more productive?
- Could I have been less stressed out?
- Could I have been more loving toward the people around me?
- The hardest thing about today was:
