The Power of Reflection

The power and benefits of intentional reflection are impactful! Sometimes it can be difficult to spend time reflecting on certain situations as we can become stuck in a repetitive, even negative thought process. This is because many people don’t know how to reflect in a way that is helpful for individual growth. When done correctly, continued reflection can improve self-awareness, lead to personal and professional growth, assist with increasing problem-solving and decision-making skills, improve emotional intelligence and help with goal setting and achievement. Everyone should set aside time daily, or weekly at first, to intentionally disconnect from the world and reflect through journaling, voice memos, creating lists, drawing, videoing or any other way that works best for you. “Research shows the habit of reflection can separate extraordinary professionals from mediocre ones. But how do you sort which experiences are most significant for your development?” (Bailey & Rehman, 2022). A study of over 400 top executives found that the most impactful reflections were of situations that brought about surprise, frustration or failure and “reflections that involved one or more or of these sentiments proved to be the most valuable in helping the leaders grow” (Bailey & Rehman, 2022).

Now that we know the importance of reflection and what types of situations are most worth reflecting upon, there are a few frameworks you can follow to help you begin your reflection journey. These include the What? So What? Now What? Model, The Integrated Reflective Cycle, The Four Fs of Active Reviewing, The CARL Framework of Reflection and the 5R Framework for Reflection (University of Edinburgh, 2018). Since there are many great frameworks and models to pick from, we want to share one great framework to help get you started! Once you follow this cycle a few times, the reflection cycle will become more natural to you. We are going to use Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle to provide a framework for positive and productive reflection. This model was developed in 1988 by Graham Gibbs and provides a realistic and helpful approach for reflection to learn from our experiences. The cycle encourages you to explore an experience in-depth, analyze it critically, and develop actionable next steps. Below is a breakdown of the six stages:

1. Description: Stick to the facts by asking questions such as: What happened? How did it happen? Where? When? Who else was there? Did someone react? How did they react? Why were you there? What did you do? What happened at the end?
2. Feelings: For the section, we recommend increasing your feelings vocabulary with this feelings wheel. This is where you would incorporate your feelings by asking: How did it make me feel? What did I feel before, during and after? How did these feelings influence my actions/decisions?
3. Evaluation: Consider what went well and what did not go well. How did you and others contribute positively or negatively to the situation? How did you make those determinations?
4. Analysis: Consider why things occurred the way they did. What factors contributed to the success/failure? How did your actions or decisions impact the situation?
5. Conclusion: Consider what you learned from the situation. What else could you have done in that situation? What skills do you have or should you develop to help you cope with the situation better in the future? How differently would you react if you face a similar situation in the future? How would you do things differently (if the situation ended up negatively), or how would you do things the same (if the situation ended positively)?
6. Action Plan: Create an action plan based on the reflections during each step of the cycle. You may come back to this action plan later to modify, or update based on continued reflection.

Again, keep in mind, this is just one reflective process! Feel free to do your own research to figure out what works best for you. Our challenge for you is to set aside time each day to consciously reflect on a situation using this (or another) reflective learning cycle and see how that helps you learn and grow the next time you are faced with a similar scenario!

Graph citation: (Martin, 2021)

References

Bailey, J. R., & Rehman, S. (2022, March 21). Don’t underestimate the power of self-reflection. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2022/03/dont-underestimate-the-power-of-self-reflection

Martin, H. (2021, February 26). Gibbs’ reflective learning cycle. HELEN MARTIN BLOG. https://helendenheld.com/tag/gibbs-reflective-learning-cycle/

University of Edinburgh. (2018, November 5). Reflecting on experience. The University of Edinburgh. https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience

Written by: Lisa Allen