Reflecting on Reflection
As a species we collectively overestimate our abilities to have an ongoing awareness of what is required to improve, meaning a tendency to consider self-reflection as fanciful and unnecessary. There seems to be a public consensus that day to day life is exceptionally busy — so taking a few moments out of our already too full days for reflection initially seems counterintuitive and like a waste of time.When I was asked to complete a self-reflection questionnaire by my University, I went into it with an assumption I was on top of everything and was simply doing the questionnaire to follow instructions and complete my degree.
However, when going through the questions my attitude did a complete 180. The questionnaire not only highlighted my strengths (and more importantly my weaknesses) but also the importance of taking time to evaluate yourself. Whilst before I completed the questions, I had a general sense that I was doing well, in being required to sit down and analyse myself and my specific behaviours, it forced an awareness of areas that would benefit from additional attention and time to improve.
On receiving my results I realised I had a lower than average score for both my career self-efficacy abilities and my digital capabilities. This initially made me nervous. I hadn’t really applied a lot of thought to these areas before so I had never considered that they might be some of my weaknesses, but I also felt empowered. Now I knew what improvement looked like, and was ready to look into what those scores meant for me and what I needed to do next.
I wanted to develop myself and my digital capabilities, so made a deliberate point of making sure my upcoming placement was able to push me into improving these skills. Whilst it was nerve-racking starting something that you know isn’t one of your strengths, there is also a certain buzz from feeling yourself grow, and within weeks I was seeing significant improvements.
Tackling my low self-efficiency score was more difficult. On reflection, I realised that it was probably due to my thoughts about how precious life is, and the pressure I put on myself in search of perfection. It is difficult to make plans about the future when the standards you have for it are unrealistically high, and ironically striving for perfection had left me with no direction at all. My results led me to recognise I had been burying my head in the sand, and that I had decided to avoid all future planning due to being afraid of committing. Whilst this thought process isn’t going to change overnight, the very fact I have now tackled it head on makes the future seem a little less daunting. Although I am still not sure what it is I want to pursue, I am now actively exploring options that interest me rather than living in denial.
So whilst I have put a plan in place on how to specifically improve my digital capabilities and self efficiency, I have also learnt a valuable lesson on the importance of introspection. In all aspects of life there is a distinct difference between surviving and thriving, and the latter requires sustained self-reflection and continuous improvement.
It is only through recognition that we can transform our weaknesses into our strengths.
