Do not waste your energy dwelling on the past, reflect instead

What this is about

It is no secret at this point that I am a strong advocate of effective reflection across all facets of my life but there is a misconception that reflection is “dwelling” on the past.

I wanted to explain why this could not be further from the truth!

Dwelling on a situation, a decision, a poor result eats at you and extracts an intolerable about of energy that could be used on more positive aspects of your life. What is even worse is that dwelling can quickly develop into a very negative habit and even be seen as attention-seeking behaviour. As we might say in Australia, “a pity party” achieves nothing positive. Someone who is dwelling tends to be focused purely on a negative emotional response to what has occurred or how it impacted them (even if it is about someone else, it is about how THAT impacted them really), while often not finding closure or resolution within themselves.

It is this that which differentiates dwelling from reflection; the entire point of reflection is to extract every: valuable: piece of information from your actions, their outcomes and results, and demand of yourself change to your behaviours to ensure that the next time you’re in a similar situation you do better. The point of going into such detail is that you can live with a different level of energy, I have put it into a mantra of sorts;

While dwelling we’re stuck somewhere between “doing it” and “accepting it”: meaning you rarely learn from the situation and definitely do not move on. So how do you go from dwelling to reflection? Let’s start with a definition of this mantra for you;

Do it

It the most simple, this is the situation and your associated decisions and actions that led to the outcome; good or bad or a little of both.

Accept it

Accepting it is important, it is about accepting and taking ownership (at least internally) of the outcomes and what lead to them; this is the precursor to effective reflection and can be hard to do at times. Putting it into a simple phrase that might help though; it is done and you can do nothing to change those outcomes: so accept it!

Learn from it

This is where reflection habits begin; whether the outcomes were good or bad, there are pieces of feedback hidden amongst the paths taken to reach that outcome. Even great outcomes can be improved, and in many ways, we are most likely to improve in the areas that we are the strongest! Spending the time to identify areas of improvement in those aspects of your life that are the most important or you are the most passionate about will see exponential growth in those areas.

Move on

The next is the most important part of this mantra, so much so that I sometimes repeat it to myself: Move on! Move On! If you have learned from your actions and their outcomes, through reflection, then move on knowing that you have improved yourself and adjusted your response options for the future.

Many people I know still think back on their past with regret but I have concluded that if I was to live my life looking backwards too often I might just miss something amazing in the here and now!

It is for this reason that I have tried, for many years, to live by this reflection mantra and why I’m so passionate about sharing it through My Reflections with anybody willing to give it a try: it has genuinely changed my outlook on life and the way that I handle myself in difficult situations, both professionally and personally. But most importantly it has helped to create the life I live with the loved ones that I enjoy every day.