You're not self-aware, the power of reflection

As the saying goes, “every day’s a school day”.

But how often do you stop and think “what did I learn today?”

Are you part of the 85-90% of people who aren’t self-aware?

We each make around 35,000 decisions every day. And it is estimated that we consume 11.8 hours of information each day.  That’s a lot of decisions and a lot of new information.

Every situation is an opportunity to ask "what did I learn?". This question encourages a proactive approach to growth, pushing you to identify areas where you can enhance your skills and knowledge.

"We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience." - John Dewey

But what do we actually mean by reflection. Reflection means looking back on your day to honestly evaluate and consider what happened, what worked, what didn’t, and what can or cannot be changed.

Reflection can provide you with improved self-awareness. You can better identify and understand who you are and how others see you. Which can be a rare skill. As although, 95% of people claim to be self-aware, research shows that only 10-15% of people actually fit the criteria for self-awareness. Also, by deliberately reflecting on your daily encounters, you solidify the knowledge and lessons acquired, making them more likely to stick with you over time.

What can we do about it?

Often at work we’re so busy being heads-down on tasks that it doesn’t allow time to reflect on those decisions we made, on that data we consumed and on our behaviours.

Research conducted at a company, studied employees during their initial weeks of training. All employees went through the same technical training, with a key difference.

Some workers spent the last 15 minutes of each day reflecting on and writing about the lessons they had learned that day. The others just kept working for another 15 minutes.

On the final training test at the end of one month, workers who had been given time to reflect performed, on average, more than 20% better.

By actively reflecting on insights from your experiences, you're more likely to retain valuable lessons and make positive changes.

Peter Drucker described it well when he said, "Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action."

Lets reflect together

Self-awareness is something we can’t ignore. Self-awareness is critical for career success. People who are more self-aware tend to perform better at work, get more promotions and lead more effectively.

You should take sufficient time to reflect. And you probably already know that.  But are you part of the 85-90% of people who aren’t self-aware?

Whether it is being overloaded or just guilt – research has shown that most people don’t take the time for reflection.

Do you intentionally take time to reflect to gain deeper insights into you work and performance?