As we get caught up in the everyday tasks and duties of our lives, it’s easy to forget about taking the time for self-reflection. Though many of us do not purposely avoid self-reflection, we often forget as our modern schedules are fast-paced.

Actively making time to self-reflect can help you to enhance your self-awareness, decision-making, and interpersonal skills. In turn, fine-tuning these important skills can help drive your professional success and fulfillment. Below, this guide will explore how you can leverage self-awareness to enhance your professional growth.

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Why Reflection Practice Supports Career Growth

Self-reflection sounds complicated, but it’s a very simple practice. This practice involves taking the time to step back to consider our emotions, experiences, and decisions. Through introspection, you can more easily get in touch with how you truly feel about situations and learn lessons from life experiences.

Self-reflection practices help promote self-awareness, offering a deeper insight into strengths, weaknesses, and long-term goals. With a better understanding of your values, it becomes easier to see a clear path on how to achieve your career goals. Another benefit of reflective practices is the opportunity to continue to grow and learn. Continuous learning is beneficial for everyone, regardless of your professional role or status. This is why everyone can benefit from self-reflection practices and can use reflection to assess whether actions are in alignment with career goals.

How to Begin Self-Reflection

Incorporating self-reflection into your routine takes time, especially in the lives of busy healthcare workers. To get started, begin by setting aside small chunks of time on your calendar that are specific to self-reflection. This will help you begin to make a routine out of these short breaks. The practice itself does not need to be long; rather, it just needs to be a time when you have quiet to truly think without distractions.

Using mindfulness techniques during your self-reflection can also help you to reflect without judgment and get in touch with your personal feelings. As you reflect on a moment, presentation, or interaction, ask questions that help spark your thought, such as:

What went well? What did not go well?

What can I learn or take away from this experience?

Writing down your thoughts in a journal can also be a helpful tool for some people. Whether you have a physical notebook or keep track using digital technology, jotting your thoughts down offers a way to look back on your self-reflection growth over some time.

To help support even more professional growth, consider asking for feedback from other people you work with. This could be your supervisors or your peers. The information you gather from other people can be used in self-reflection, as other people may be able to see things that you cannot.

Starting Your Reflection Practice

Beginning regular reflection practices can help you become more self-aware and make better decisions in professional settings. Furthermore, self-reflection can help you improve your interpersonal skills, setting you up for more leadership and growth opportunities.

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