How to do it: self-reflection

Hello lovely, how’s winter treating you?! I just got back from the cold outside and my hands are completely numb, so typing isn’t going too fluent right now.. The cold definitely bothers me sometimes! (10 point for you if you got that reference)

As January is the time for clean slates and new beginnings, I thought that this month was probably the best month to tell you something about a course I’m taking. It’s called GetReal2Day and it mainly focuses on teaching you how to sell yourself in this hectic, modern world. They say it’s an accelerator to guide us, as (bio)medical students, in embodying our ideas about innovation and presenting them to the investors and professionals. That’s quite a mouthful, isn’t it? Being a closed person, that doesn’t easily speak up in a large group and does not at all like to give presentations, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to learn a bit more about how to pitch and how to present your ideas in a professional way. What I didn’t expect, however, is the large amount of self-reflection that is involved in this. 
That’s what I want to talk to you guys about today, self-reflection. It is probably one of the most underrated qualities of a human being, and most people (me included) don’t even know what it exactly means! I think a lot of us are really focused about what other people think of us, and how we present ourselves, but never really look at why we do things the way we do, and why we choose to act a certain way. So yeah, let’s talk a bit about what exactly self-reflection is, and how you do it!

First things first, everyone is different. If you’re with a large group of people, there will always be those people who talk louder than everyone else, and there will always be those people who literally don’t say a word. It’s easy to see this in other people, but what role do you fulfil in a large group? Are you the leader, or would you rather listen, and follow if you like the idea? Do you speak up easily, or are you more comfortable when it’s only 2 people listening instead of 15? And why is that?
Asking yourself this is exactly what self-reflection is. Questioning yourself about your motives, your morals behind you decisions, and trying to figure out if those standards can be broken. The “why?” question is one of the hardest questions to answer, but it is exactly the thing you want to ask yourself if you want to figure out why you chose not to speak up, or why you chose to do exactly that.

One of the things they asked us to do in this course, is come up with one aspect of yourself that can be helpful when working in a team. This is your power, your strength, the thing people will pick you for. It is also your weakness. For example, if you’re really patient, that is great, but if you’re too patient, you might not push someone or ask for something, and miss a deadline because of this. Or if you’re a perfectionist, you might pick up more tasks than you can handle, because you want everything to be perfect. These problems you find are your pitfalls, and might work against you if you don’t realize you have them.

Next to that, everyone has certain allergies. I, for example, hate it when people don’t keep their promises. If you say you’re going to do something before the end of the week, and don’t do it without giving a proper reason, you are definitely on my bad side. This can be related to my strength, which is punctuality. Punctuality becomes my pitfall however, when a deadline shifts, because I can’t work that well under pressure. This is an example of DanielOfman’s Core Quality model, which is used in many coaching classes.

The reason why you act certain ways, why you for example won’t say much in a large group, is because you have made certain standards in your head, which you have to pursue. Maybe your standard is “only say something when it has enough value” and that’s why you don’t speak up. Breaking these standards is the hardest thing of the process, because it just feels wrong to not live by those “rules”. Realizing you have these standards is already a big step in the right direction, though,  because then you will be able to see things from someone else’s perspective more easily.

All in all, self-reflection can be very confronting. I have been thinking about my motives a lot these past weeks, and it’s so weird to think that everyone has these standards in their heads, that make them act a certain way, without even realizing they have made those standards themselves! I am not yet at the stage where I am able to break my standards and do something I usually wouldn’t do, but I do think more about why I do certain things. This is something I encourage you to do as well, because the best person to teach from is yourself. Looking at yourself a bit more will make you feel a lot more confident about yourself and your actions, and will make it easier to stay true to who you really are.

That’s it for today, quite a bit of serious rambling! I don't know if it makes any sense to you, I just had to write it all down to get it all out of my head.. Maybe there’s one of those core qualities behind it… ;)

Lots of love, and I will see you soon!

(I’ve been really doing well on the blogging this month if I may say so myself, and there’s a January favourites coming up as well.. wow!)