Self-reflection is an important tool for any leader. I’m not talking about going to mountain-top and meditating with your legs crossed for 72 hours. No, I am talking about taking time out to look at yourself and understand what you are doing well, and what you can improve on. Below are seven steps on how to reflect on yourself.
Make time
Self-reflections should be quick and easy, otherwise they become a chore. A good self-reflection should take a maximum of forty minutes split into four areas (which I will explain later). Each area should be five to ten minutes depending on how practiced you are with it. This is the right amount of time to come up with points and some examples but not overthink too much. Usually your first instincts are what you actually believe.
In the beginning you may find it is taking longer than ten minutes, do not worry. This is just because you are not used to coming up with points about yourself. Very rarely do we sit down and have a good look at ourselves. Personally, I try to do this every three to four months.
Get your head right
You need to be in the right frame of mind for self-reflection. You cannot be in an environment that is distracting or stressful. Find a space that suits you best by changing your environment and changing your state of mind. For example, this could be a coffee shop, a park or locking yourself in a meeting room.
You also need to be in the right state of mind to allow yourself to be open, truthful and able to trust your instincts. Avoid overthinking as often, what you feel is a true reflection. Check out my previous article on how to be open to change for more tips.
Areas of reflection
Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats or SWOT for short. If you run a business or large projects you may have heard of this before. We often carry out a SWOT analysis for projects, businesses or investments, so why not ourselves. This can be done in whatever format suits you, such as a brainstorm or list.
Identify the points by starting with a high level category then focusing on the detailed examples. Here are some examples below.
Strength
- I am good at communicating deadlines clearly and concisely. I can prove this because the last three project deadlines were well understood by all and the team worked to those dates without confusion.
Weakness
- I am commercially weak. I believe this because I have not had much experience in commercial aspects of the business.
Opportunities
- I can get a promotion. I see this as viable as the person currently above me is leaving and there is an opportunity for me to apply for the role.
Threats
- The business is struggling in the market and my role as a support function could be risk.
I will be writing on how to carry out a SWOT analysis in detail soon so subscribe for a notification on when it’s out!
Score yourself
Utilising systems such as the Likert Scale to score yourself in each area. This way you can identify easily where you are strong and where you need to improve. For example, rate yourself on a Likert scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being performance issue, 3 being competent and 5 being leader.
Language
Make sure that you use the right language when reflecting on yourself. Focus on positive language rather than negative language. Here are some examples:
| Negative language | Positive language |
| I am weak in… | An area I can improve on is… |
| I failed to… | I learnt how… |
| I am lesser than… | I can emulate… |
Feedback
Self-reflections are always subjective and based on how you are feeling at that particular time. It can be difficult to control our state of mind depending on what is going on in our life. A way to verify your self-review is feedback. Find one or two people you trust as ask if they would carry out the same exercise on you. Ask them to be specific and see how it aligns to your reflection of yourself.
You may be surprised as something you see as an area of improvement, others see as a strength.
Take action
Look at the points to which you can improve on or act upon. Feed these into your goal plan and then make an action plan to see the goals through. Click here to read on how to create the ultimate goal plan.
How to reference this article:
- Toor, J. (2019). 7 steps on how to reflect on yourself? Available at: https://pmgrowth.co/7-steps-on-how-to-reflect-on-yourself?/