Why Reflecting On The Past Helps Your Future
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Reflection is one of the key skills that any leader – or any person – should have. While a lot of people make reflection core to New Year’s resolutions, it might be ideal to reflect at various points throughout the year as opposed to just the one. Here are some reasons to consider reflecting and pausing your life to look at this.
One of the biggest reasons is that reflection can be a very positive experience if we let it. When we reflect, we can choose to look at scenes or events in a negative way or in a positive way. When we have a positive outlook, we start to see things in a different light. From our reflection, we can learn, grow, and can even get the energy that we can use in our future too. Remember there is no real failure, only lessons that we can learn from.
The second reason reflecting on the past can help is that it allows us to be present. While it may seem strange, think of it this way: we are looking at our past from a distance as opposed to reliving it. Being present means looking around at where you are at currently and figuring out what you can be doing next right at this moment. To do this, looking back at our actions, thoughts, and more can allow us to better act in the now.
Reflecting on our past also allows us to be perceptive of the world. Feeding off of the second point you can extract lessons and realize new things from your actions that you can use now. The only way you can do that is if you are being perceptive of the world around you and if you are willing to dig into the depths of yourself to discover more about you.
All of these things can help us in being better people moving forward via humility. When we reflect on our past actions and their effects on people we can learn more about how we can do things better. While we may not be perfect, we can still learn how to better serve and assist people around us. This attitude is key as we are all people who need to be growing.
The fifth reason reflecting right now on our past can help us is that it’s proactive. When we reflect we are using time and energy to look at the past. That being said, it’s well worth investing into it as we are using our focus, energy, and time now to learn and grow from the things we are reflecting on. This helps us in being more proactive in the future.
Lastly reflecting on our past can prepare us for our future by helping us find what our deepest passions are. For sure we have many passions, however, there are passions that we are working hard on while others we are leaving on the back burner. What is also key is that if we are passionate individuals, we will cherish our accomplishments, especially if they pertain to things we are passionate about. This improves our future because we know what we should be focusing on and how we can grow the next time.