Personal Development: 5 reasons for self-reflection

March 28, 2024

The Personal development and the self-reflection , keys in your emotional well-being.

The importance of self-reflection

Practicing self-reflection is a very important aspect in the development of a person. Intuitively, many will agree that the experience is one of the best ways to grow .

Learning from mistakes is something that has happened to everyone, but experience can have different consequences for each person: not everyone will perceive the facts in the same way. Without a process of active thinking about what we live or without questioning the meaning of those experiences, learning, in many cases, will not occur. In other words, what brings us from the simple experience to learning, is the self-reflection .

Self-reflection will allow us to learn more deeply when we see situations from different lenses and to favor the challenging questions that will lead us to question our own beliefs about the world. If the reflection is correct, it will help us to be more realistic and to follow our path in personal development.

Reflection and emotions: walking towards wellness

We have already discussed the relationship between well-being and emotions in our article "What is emotional intelligence?".

For example, the development of self-control refers to an improvement in impulse management, the emotional self-regulation , the planning , the self-awareness and the social adaptation , which are absolutely essential for human well-being and which are in full consonance with meaningful learning by and for life. To acquire a good self-control, this requires a good level of interior reflection, so it seems evident, the connection between self-reflection and well-being.

The word wellness , that is to say, be okay, refers to "being in the place I want to be", and involves achieving balance and harmony in our daily lives; in the relationship with ourselves and in the interaction with others. Therefore, well-being is not a constant, but a dynamic component that is built throughout life and that can change at any time.

But nevertheless, Well-being can become a relatively stable characteristic if we get a good relationship with our inner . By achieving this, we will be able to face the diverse experiences that are presented to us throughout our day to day life. That is what personal development consists of.

Personal development and self-reflection: curiosity and pain

To build the internal support that will allow us to face the situations and problems of our daily lives, it will be necessary to make difficult decisions, assume a position or a certain point of view and decide the best choice. If we want welfare to be a more or less stable feature, we will have to ask ourselves the following question from time to time: "Is this where I want to be?".

This question will allow us know if we really are in the place we want to be (our work, our partner, our city, etc.). If the answer is yes, we will be in a Flow State and everything will seem to be in harmony. If the answer is no, then we will be in the place of discomfort. Self-reflection is the way to get back to well-being: to move towards personal development.

Therefore, the path of personal development is neither more nor less than the path towards well-being, towards the place where I want to be, but this does not mean that we are constantly reflecting. We already discussed the importance of living in the present in the article "Mindfulness: 8 benefits of mindfulness".

Even so, Mindfulness requires reflection and knowledge of our emotional state, to later accept us as we are. In addition, the present will also indicate if we are comfortable or not, because there are two ways that will lead us to self-reflection: curiosity and pain .

The problems of avoiding reflection

To live constantly away from the present, in the past, in the future or in the excessive self-demands that we face, do not obey a full self-knowledge, but rather an unbalanced and little objective image of ourselves, which generates low self-esteem, feelings of inadequacy, social withdrawal, little assertiveness, constant stress and anxiety, psychosomatic problems and poor emotional well-being.

Although the reflection towards personal development could seem easy to the naked eye, there are many people who go to coaching professionals to unlock. The coach, as a facilitator of personal development, gets the client to reflect through socrácticas questions, allowing him to continue growing as a person. The coach helps connect with the wishes and emotions , and although reflection may seem an intellectual act, it is an emotional act: detachment plays a decisive role when it comes to growing as individuals.

In fact, avoiding self-reflection is commonplace. When it is curiosity that leads us to reflect and we avoid it, the rigidity . If we consider that there are other ways of doing things, but we are afraid of that possibility, we will surely never get out of the comfort zone. On the contrary, if it is the pain that leads us to reflect, but we do not attack that detachment, surely it will appear the sadness . In the long run, the sadness will turn into melancholy and we will continue thinking that the past has always been better.

The 5 reasons to reflect

We live in a society that has undergone profound changes in recent decades. Globalization has brought another way of thinking about all of us and capitalism has influenced our lives to the point of being objects rather than subjects . It is not easy to look inward when culture leads us to constantly look out, to compare ourselves, to be more successful, more consumers, etc. Amidst so much information (or infoxication) we stick to old certainties to feel safe, unable to describe reality as it is.

A) Yes, we deny our emotions and live together in an unreflective psychic-emotional state . Our value only seems to have value in the approval of others. To not leave you have to have brand clothes, a pretty girl, a successful profession, a good position, a good car, etc ... building a path of suffering, far from a true sense of personal development, emotional wellbeing and backs to our own wishes.

Fortunately, we have the reflective capacity to detach ourselves from certainties, to connect with ourselves and to self-reflect. In the personal dimension our arguments and actions are always guided by our emotions, so it is important to understand and accept them. We do not know what will happen in the next present, but whatever happens will be different if it happens in the emotion of expectation, control, superficiality, hypocrisy, or if it happens from the emotion of respect towards oneself, the acceptance, gratitude, trust, tenderness.