Intentional Snowball

Overview

Reflection gives serious conscious thought to an event or idea. And Last week I shared that reflection would be a key to your transformational 2024.

Today, we dig into barriers to and fundamentals of reflection.

Issue(s)

Reflecting on our experiences can be challenging for a variety of reasons:

• Your Must-Do List: obligations to work, family. AKA: responsibility (cough) being an adult.

• Lack of Time: the fast-paced nature of our present world demands time and energy and can be overwhelming. There’s never enough time to slow down.

• Fear of Introspection: worrying about what you’ll confront might make you uncomfortable or you may struggle with the vulnerability that comes with honest self-reflection.

• Resistance: you don’t want to reflect and dismiss it as unnecessary. You’re fine with your status quo.

Now answer this question: what’s holding me back?

Now tell that barrier “Not today!”

Analysis:

Research says 15 minutes of reflection each day can improve performance. Imagine if your life and relationship performance could increase by 23% in just 10 days. 10 days!

What could that improvement look like for you if you started reflecting?

Solution:

You don't have to do a lot of reflection at once. Try it in small steps. To do that, you need to understand all the parts that make reflection effective and use the pieces that work best for you.

Psychologist Graham Gibbs studied reflection as a way to learn by doing.

He breaks reflection into 6 parts, but today we’re focusing on the first 5.

1. Description: Start by describing the situation or experience you want to reflect upon. What happened? Who was involved? What were the circumstances? The description gives you context.

2. Feelings: Explore your emotions and reactions during the experience. How did you feel at the time? What were your initial thoughts and impressions? Emotions play a crucial role in shaping our experiences, so it's important to name and acknowledge them.

3. Evaluation: Take a step back and objectively evaluate the experience. What worked well? What could have been better? Reflect on both the positive aspects and the areas where growth is possible. This evaluation allows you to gain insights and learn from your experiences.

4. Analysis: Keep going. What underlying factors and influences showed up? Consider the different perspectives of those involved. What was the root cause of any emotion or action you took? This step helps you understand the complexities behind the experience and provides a more comprehensive view.

5. Conclusion: Synthesize your thoughts and draw meaningful conclusions. What have you learned from this experience? How has it shaped your understanding and beliefs? Identify a key takeaway and lesson that you can apply moving forward.

This analysis can be broken up over days or processed in minutes. But it won’t happen at all if you don’t give it a chance.

Action:

Snowball challenge! You need your partner and two blank pieces of paper.

1. Think of your experiences over the past year. Pick one event or experience (positive, negative, surprising) you shared then write a short description of each on your piece of paper.

2. Below the description write at least 3 feelings associated with that event.

3. Crumple up your paper and throw your “snowball” at your partner. (They do the same.) Open the paper and read each other’s experiences without judgment or comment.

4. Then reflect together. (This is where your style of relationship gets to let loose and finish the conversation.)

👉️ Tip: Questions to ask your partner to get the reflection process going:

• Will you share more about that?

• Why was that so important to you?

• What do you think the real reason was that you felt [insert emotion your partner wrote] that day?

• What are other things we enjoy doing together that create [insert an emotion someone wrote that you want to repeat]?

Reminisce. Uncover perspectives.

Dig in and take time to reflect together.

Conclusion:

Through reflection, you can identify patterns, uncover your strengths and areas for improvement, and gain clarity about what truly matters to you and your partner.

Don’t worry about the future right now, just continue to reflect.

⛄️ It only takes two snowballs to build a beautiful snowman.

Until next week,

Michelle @ Partnership Pulse

P.S. In case you skipped the middle and are still struggling with reflection 👇️