Hello, you beautiful thing! A habit that I’ve been trying to incorporate into my routine is weekly self-reflection. I believe to achieve all the goals you want to achieve, it’s important to take a step back and check in with yourself. Self-reflection exercises are the perfect way to do this.
Making sure you are feeling good while also making sure you are making strides towards your dreams is SO important.
I want to share with you 6 self-reflection exercises that I’ve been practicing that have helped me immensely. They’ve changed my life and helped me make great steps towards my higher self. I’m so excited. Let’s jump right in…
1. Weekly self-reflection journaling
It wouldn’t be a blog post from me if I didn’t give a quick shoutout to journaling. It truly has been life-changing for me, which is why I never shut up about it!
Journaling is the perfect way to check in with your habits and goals weekly. Some of the prompts you may want to practice are the following.
- What worked last week?
- Were there any habits that helped me get closer to my goals?
- What didn’t work?
- Was there something I did that pushed me further from my goals?
- What motivated me?
Consequently, I have a whole post called “Sunday Reset Journal Prompts” that has the PERFECT prompts to practice self-reflection, so I’ll link that here. Link: https://xojacilynn.com/sunday-reset-journaling-prompts/
Try it out! I recommend following these prompts every Sunday or Monday, depending on which you find most convenient for your schedule. Personally, I love to write these things down on Sunday so I feel completely ready for the week ahead!
2. Do a check-in with your mind.
To ultimately be productive and become closer to achieving all of your goals, it is crucial to have a sound mind. It’s quite simple.
Take a minute of your time to ask yourself what emotions you’re feeling. Is it stress? Is it anger? If it’s a negative emotion, take time to ask yourself why you’re feeling this, and what the solution could be to this problem.
I’ll give a quick example. This week I’ve been stressed because I’m becoming certified as a CNA, and the test has been giving me anxiety. I sat down and asked myself why I’m feeling anxious about it. After asking myself, my answers were along the lines of “you could fail the test”, which is the worst-case scenario. I followed it by telling myself, “if you fail, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll just have to retake the test.” I told myself that all I had to do was study hard and take it day by day. What can you do other than your best, right?
After assessing the situation head-on, I feel SO much more confident and feel ready to put my best foot forward to the task. Assessing your emotions and validating what you are feeling is SO important. If you want to ease your day-to-day anxieties, I recommend doing this.
3. Check in with your body!
Not only do you want to be checking in with your brain, but you also want to be checking in with your whole body as well!
It’s hard to get work done when you feel achy, sore, tired, and unenergized. Lately, I’ve been SO tired, and it’s been hard to get work done. Life happens, and we have to deal with these obstacles!
Take some time to sit there with your body, feel everything, be conscious of everything happening. Say thank you to your body for all that it does for you. Think of how you can care for it.
Are you sore? Could you ice it? Could you role your muscle out?
Are you tired? Could you go to bed earlier tonight?
Our bodies do SO much for us every day, so it’s important to show your gratitude by caring for it and making sure it’s in tip-top shape! Doing this weekly will help you feel your best, and hopefully, help to reduce your risk of injuries.
4. Record your ABCs
Now, this technique is new to me, but I absolutely love it. It’s about reducing your stress by shifting your thoughts expressed towards a certain situation. I’ll quickly walk through it.
A: Activating event
- With this, you’re going to identify what even triggered stress/anxiety within you. When was the exact moment you started feeling it?
B: Beliefs
- Take a moment to stop and identify your negative beliefs about the event/trigger. Is this the true reality of the event? Or is your brain making it up?
C: Consequence
- Learn skills to manage your emotions pertaining to the event/trigger. My favorite would probably be meditation. Identify any patterns that you find in your behaviors and your emotions. If you find harmful ones, try your best to change them.
You can use the ABCs while you’re in a situation where you feel a rising sense of anxiety, or you can use it after the event to reflect on how you can avoid it next time. It is such a great way to avoid unnecessary stress throughout your week.
5. Write a journal entry from the perspective of your highest self
This is by far the most exciting exercise!
All you have to do is imagine your dream version of yourself. Whether you’re rich, have your dream body, or you’re traveling the world, it doesn’t matter. Think of your most perfect self and what they would be doing.
Write out their daily routine, write down what they see, what they feel, and what they do.
For example, write what time you wake up. Then, write the view you see when you wake up. Where are you? Who are you with? Write down what you wear.
Write about your job or about your hobbies. You can write about the success of your business.
If you’ve ever practiced manifest scripting, it is essentially close to that, but this technique can also work for people who aren’t completely into manifestation!
After you write all about what a day is like for your dream self, find where you can make changes in your life RIGHT NOW to become closer to that person. Is there a certain shirt you wrote about that you could buy, or a habit that you could incorporate?
There’s always something you can do to become closer to your highest self. I believe there is something you can do EVERY SINGLE DAY. I stand by that.
So write down your dream life, and figure out how YOU can become the person you’re writing about.
6. Make note of when you feel the most like yourself
Oh, I wish I could grab you and engrave this into the front of your brain.
You need to find the moments in life where you feel PASSIONATE and like you’re ALIVE. A lot of the time we can get ourselves into a routine that seems mundane and unexciting. This can lead us to deep ruts where we become more and more depressed.
Take note of where you feel like YOURSELF. Where you find a new sense of drive and liveliness. For me, I find this in coffee shops and bookstores. I find it at nighttime when I’m driving home with music blasting. I find it when I go for long runs.
I’m not kidding, write it down. Come back to these moments and places when you feel yourself slipping into a rut. If you find yourself becoming depressed, practice one of your favorite things or take yourself to one of your favorite places and REFUEL yourself.
As great as all of the above exercises are, I find this one SO crucial. Finding what drives you is so important as to not lose your motivation and will to keep going.
I would recommend keeping a note on your phone and be mindful of the situations you’re in.
Game-changer, I swear!
I’ve enjoyed sharing my thoughts so much today, and I hope on everything that you try incorporating these exercises into your own weekly routine. Here’s a quote to inspire you this week!
“Self-reflection entails asking yourself questions about your values, assessing your strengths and failures, thinking about your perceptions and interactions with others, and imagining where you want to take your life in the future.” – Robert L. Rosen
Self-reflection is crucial for self-progression, and it is SO worth it when it is SO easy. Take some time out of your week and start practicing.
I’m sending so much love to you throughout this week! Don’t forget that I started an Instagram page that you can follow! So, go follow @xojacilynn for more frequent updates and motivation.
Have a lovely week…
xo,
jaci lynn
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