Reflection
How often do we stop and reflect on what is going on in our lives? If we don’t reflect upon recent experiences it is difficult to make changes, we are just running on the autopilot mode.
Taking just a couple of minutes to reflect on recurring themes, issues, and emotions from recent days can change the course of our lives.
I recently was in a conflict with a teammate and I realized, I don’t have a good process in place, I should focus on a better process to resolve the issue rather than going back and forth with that person. It transformed my work experience, and I was having this issue for months. Taking just a couple of minutes to reflect on it gave me space to think high level, and try to approach the situation differently.
Strategy vs tactics
The reason reflaction is a powerful activity has to do with a concept called strategy vs tactics. We are usually focused on changing tactics but we rarely try to focus on strategy. How do we approach a problem with a different strategy, instead of focusing on different tactics is always a more productive question.
This concept is understood well in war, generals spend most of their time thinking about a correct strategy, once a good strategy is in place, it is 100x easier to pick the right tactic. Even losing a battle is irrelevant if the strategy is good since a good strategy will almost guarantee a winning outcome.
Journaling
The easiest way to spend more time in a reflection state is to journal regularly. Journaling will inevitably lead you to look at things on a high level and connect dots that were now visible before. It is why I am coming back to journaling over and over, I have yet to find a more powerful technique to induce a state of reflection.
The more we are out of the autopilot mode the more strategic we can become, so time block a session in your calendar just for reflection!