The Art of Intentional Reflection

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Ready to transform the way you think about reflection? Forget the notion that it's just a 'nice to have'. I'm diving deep into the transformative power of reflection – a skill that can quite literally rewire your brain for better decision-making, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence.

I reveal the fascinating neuroscience behind intentional reflection and break down three powerful reflection frameworks that will help you move from rumination to meaningful self-assessment. Learn how to leverage the Zoom Out Model (see the Annual Reflection PDF below), the Integrated Reflective Cycle, and the What, So What, Now What approach to turn your experiences into powerful learning opportunities.

Whether you're looking to understand your values, analyse a challenging interaction, or create a roadmap for personal development, this episode provides the tools you need to reflect with purpose and compassion.

Mentioned in this episode:

Free Values Worksheet

The Integrated Reflective Cycle plus PDF download below

What, So What, Now What Framework plus PDF download below

Annual Reflection.pdf

Download PDF • 64KB

The Integrated Reflective Cycle Model.pdf

Download PDF • 69KB

What - So What - Now What Model.pdf

Download PDF • 66KB

Transcript:

Hi, welcome to today's episode of Leadwell with Jacqui, where we are talking all things reflection. It just so happens that I'm recording this podcast at the end of the year because this is a really natural time that we all start to reflect on the year that was and determine whether we're happy with how we went and sometimes maybe even ruminate on how things went. But what we're going to talk about, the science behind how important reflection is and the strategies that I'm going to share with you in terms of how you can create some structure for your reflection can be used anytime. They can be used each day, at the end of each day, if you're really actively trying to work on certain behaviours and you want to be reassessing and checking in every day as to whether you're progressing.

They might be used monthly at a bit of a check-in session, quarterly, biannually, annually. You get the drift. I am sort of going to put my hand up and share that I'm not a natural reflector. And I actually think a lot of us aren't. I think we have action bias and a lot of the time we just want to move in or get caught up in constant action, right? We constantly want to be moving forward. So even when it comes to the end of the year, we might focus on what we're going to do different next year, what next year will bring, what our goals and plans will be for the following year. And that's great. There's nothing wrong with that. But we might be missing vital data points if we don't incorporate some intentional reflection.

So this episode is just that. I'm going to take you through what that might look like in terms of intentional reflection and then next week's episode we'll talk you through, give you some scaffolding on how you can utilise that reflection in your annual planning. So let's dive in.

First, I'd like to just share a little bit about the neuroscience behind reflection. Because sometimes we can think that it's a nice to have, maybe it's even a little bit woo woo or a bit too like psychoanalyse-y, a bit too therapy, a bit too sort of navel gazing. And people can sometimes look at reflection through a lens of judgment. Actually, reflection is a very important process in terms of how our brains work. And that's what I wanna share with you. We'll just go high level, but you know I'm a nerd for this stuff. So first of all, one of the things that is reinforced, one of the processes that's reinforced through intentional reflection is something called synaptic plasticity.

Effectively what that means is connections between our neurons. So when we have a thought process, when we have particular behaviors, when we have sort of cause and effect, what that is doing in our brain, it's actually creating connections between the cells in our brain which are called neurons. And so the cells in our brain, our neurons look like – there's kind of a cell and it has lots of bits coming off and then it's got a long tail and that's what connects to the next neuron. When we talk about synaptic plasticity, what we are talking about is when the synapses or the ends, the little dangly bits of our cells, connect. So they create a little bit of like a bond and that means that when we want to replicate particular behaviour that bond is already existing and so the messages that can be sent between those two neurons is much more effective it's much more efficient and it's more easeful for our brain and remember that our brain – I was going to say it's lazy. It's not lazy. It's efficient and it's going to choose a path of least resistance. And the path of least resistance is the one that has these really strong neural networks. But when we have active reflection practices, we are firming up or making stronger and more robust.

The connections between the neurons that we have that are involved in thinking and memory. So think of it, think of studying for an exam. When you know you have an exam coming up and you need to be able to recall important information from previous learnings, what do you do? You do revision.

And maybe, you know, for some of us, haven't done some of this for quite some time. But you do revision, you go back, you have a look at your notes. A lot of us will rewrite those notes. I'm a verbal processor, thus the podcast. So I used to get people to quiz me and I would have, I would recall, I'd have to speak or verbalise, or if I explain, a phenomenon to someone that helps me understand it.

And so what that revision is doing is it's strengthening those synaptic connections or those neural pathways and making it easier for us to recall those memories. When we do reflection on, you know, the year that was or the meeting that we had or how we, you know, showed up in that day, for example. We're doing the same thing. We're revising and we're reminding our brain of what we want to be doing, what's important, and we're making it easier for our brain to recall that data and use it going forward.

The other thing we're doing when we're reflecting is we're engaging our prefrontal cortex, which I know you've heard me speak about many times before, because maybe it might be my favourite part of the brain. But this is where our rational thinking occurs. So our decision making, problem solving, our self-reflection, our even memories. So we're able to, when we sort of critically analyse an experience, we use our prefrontal cortex. So we're rationally assessing that experience. And that means that part of the brain being activated allows us to analyse our behavior, understand our decisions, assess whether we aligned with, you know, the behaviours that we want to be demonstrating, and then plan better for the future.

So that's another part of our brain that's involved in reflection. And there's probably a hundred others, but I'm just really wanting to share with you the big boppers. So another part, and this is the last one that I'll take you through, is the default mode network. And this is actually a part of the brain that I've learned about relatively recently, probably in the last year. So it's also referred to as the DMN.

And this network of components of the brain is active when we are introspective, when we are recalling our memories, when we're thinking about or visualising our future. So it's a really important network for self-assessment rather than thinking about what's going on in the outside world or what other people are doing. And when we have a better integrated DMN, then we have greater self-awareness and we are better set up for empathy. So reflection is actually an important exercise to strengthen the integration of the DMN in our brain. It helps with self-awareness which is a very critical factor in emotional intelligence, any sort of people skills and being able to live with intention which is kind of what I'm all about. So this is a really important, these are all really important factors that are occurring when we reflect. It's not just some woo woo journaling with incense burning kind of thing. Although if that's your vibe, go for it, you know? So when we pause to reflect, we are able to really critically assess what happened so that we can use that information to determine what we want to happen. And you know, that is going to give us more clarity on how our decisions or behaviours have led us closer to or further away from our purpose, our values, our goals, what's important to us so that we can reduce our impulsivity, we can reduce reactive decision making. Have I convinced you? I hope I have.

What I'd like to move into next is how, how do we do this reflection? So in years gone by, if I reflected at all, it'd be, you know, I'm going for a run and I'm ruminating on a conversation that I had. or when I said something and I spend weeks going, I can't believe I said that, how embarrassing or, you know, I wish I could go back and change it. Technically that is reflection, but certainly in my experience, it's not useful or helpful reflection. And so I have some very, very simple models or frameworks that can help to scaffold this thought process to make it more useful. I speak to people all the time who share how much sleep they lose spending time ruminating on that thing that they said, I can't believe I said that, I can't believe I did that. You know, when you have an interaction with someone and you think, why didn't I say that thing? Or, you know, you have all the great calls when you're reflecting, not in the moment. But that rumination is not necessarily going to be helpful in modifying your behavior. This more structured reflection is, if I do say so myself.

So we have three models. We're going to start with the Zoom Out model, which is really broad sweep starting point to help to determine which areas that we want to drill down on. And so it is really about values. So this is sort of more of a values based reflection. And this is something that I've kind of pulled together. It's not necessarily a formal framework.

So we start by asking simple but broad questions:

• When did I live to my values this year? – Side note, if you don't know, if you haven't really clearly defined and articulated what your values are, that would be your first port of call. And I have a free worksheet on my website, go to leadwellco.com.au, do the worksheet. I recommend you spend about an hour doing that. There is a webinar that goes along with it that explains it, but the worksheet is pretty self-explanatory itself. So do that first so that you know what lens you're assessing your behaviours through.

When you know what your values are, ask yourself what are some examples from the previous year, month, day, whatever, of me living to those values?

• When did I really, so my top two values are authenticity and wholeheartedness.

• When was I really truly authentic this year?

• What decisions did I make that were really wholehearted?

• What did I really jump into?

• Where did I deviate from those values?

• When was I not truly authentic?

• Can I think of any times that I wasn't wholehearted? And how does that feel?

If it feels aligned, if you go, actually, I feel okay with it, like I would replicate that, that might be a cue to reassess your values. Maybe they are no longer your top values. Values ebb and flow, that's totally okay.

But if it feels a bit off and you feel a bit disappointed or any of those kind of move away emotions, then that's a cue or a clue even. Okay, maybe that was an example of a time where my behavior isn't what I want it to be. That's an opportunity for me to drill down. So write down that particular experience and then use one of the subsequent frameworks I'm gonna go through with you to drill down into it.

If the values questions don't give you any cues in terms of what you want to work on, I have some more:

• Describe the previous year in one word. When you think of that word, when you feel that, what emotions come up? At the beginning of the year, is that the word that you would have chosen? And what led you to identifying that as being the all-encompassing word?

So if your word was challenging, difficult, exhausting, you know, any of those sorts of words, maybe it's very rare that in January we go, this is going to be the year of exhaustion. So start to critically appraise what that means.

• What are you most grateful for from the previous year?

• What were your greatest challenges?

• What were your greatest lessons?

• What are you leaving this year? What are you leaving behind?

• What are you letting go of?

So feel free to pause, have a think about those questions, maybe even write them down, spend some time really leaning into them and identifying which answers need more detail. [You might say,] "I need more information," [or] "I actually feel a bit funny about this particular experience that happened, but I don't know why and I don't know how I should do it differently."

Write it down and then bring it into one of the next frameworks.

So the second sort of structure that we're going to look at is called the Integrated Reflection Cycle. Again, super, super easy, but does give a little bit of, I love a nice linear pathway. It gives us a little bit of a map of how we can structure our thoughts.

So we start with the experience, then the reflection on our action, then we look at a theory, and then preparation. So it's a four step pathway.

So we start by looking at the experience, describe the experience. What happened? What were the contributing factors? Who else was there? What did I do? So we really want to get quite detailed in the experience that occurred. And these models, these more experience-based models or event-based models, are really helpful when we're doing our daily reflections as well. So hold on to this and reuse it anytime you want to sort of drill down and assess something. So what was the experience?

There's a great article actually on the University of Edinburgh website and I will link it below and it will really outline these frameworks for you and give you some important and helpful questions and things so you can have a, spend some time with it. So we've got the experience, then we want to reflect. So look at the experience and think, and this is where that critical appraisal comes in.

• What did I do well?

• What could have gone differently and really break this down into your thoughts, your feelings and your actions.

• What was I thinking in that moment? What thoughts were going through my mind?

• How was I feeling? What emotions came up for me?

• And then what did I do? What actions or behaviors did I demonstrate?

This is where we might start to incorporate some why questions:

• Why did I do that?

• What led me to that behavior?

• What led me to that decision that I made?

• What emotions were coming up for me and what message are they bringing?

So that's our reflection.

Then we want to have a look at theory. And this is a framework that is useful for, you know, coaches and psychologists and things. Theory, I like to use in terms of what my theory is, like what is my hypothesis for why I demonstrated those behaviours and what was going on for me and what drove that experience. But you might also incorporate what you know, what your knowledge is. Maybe you have a theory around, well, I have a pattern of this type of behavior, or when this thing happened to me in my childhood or earlier in my life, it drives this type of behavior or these emotions when those external factors are at play. And then the final step is preparation. Okay, it happened.

This is a really important point. It happened and it can't unhappen. So spending lots of time thinking about it is not going to change it. Spending time assessing it and choosing to do something different is a lot more, is a much more useful use of your time and energy.

So what are you going to do differently next time making those decisions, choosing how you will behave going forward? And that's going to really have that synaptic plasticity effect. One, when the decision has already been made and that pathway already exists in the brain, when you encounter a similar experience, it's going to be much more easy for you to recall that decision and for you to employ those behaviors instead.

So that is the integrated reflective cycle.

The final model is even simpler. And this is a real kind of coaching technique as well. This is called the What, So What, Now What model. And not surprisingly, there are three steps.

So first, What?

• What situation have you identified that you want to learn from?

• What are the facts?

• What are the feelings?

• What happened?

• What is the situation?

Other questions like:

• What did I want to achieve?

• What was my desired outcome?

• What was my actual outcome?

• What's the difference between those two outcomes? What were the consequences?

• What were the good parts?

• What were the good components of this experience?

• And what were the not so good?

So lots and lots of what questions. Again, I'll link a really helpful article that will give you lots of these question points as well from the University of Edinburgh.

Then we get a little more granular. So What? This helps us to determine the meaning or, you know, gives us a bit of a prompt to critically appraise what's happened. So, So What?

• Why is this important? What of it?

• You know, what was going through my mind?

• What could I have done differently?

So start to really assess why it's important and the other options available to you in that moment because you know as we know hindsight's 20-20 so looking back and figuring out what we could have done now that we're not in fight-or-flight now that we are in a calm safe reflective state will allow us to determine a better path next time.

And that leads us to the final step of the What, So What, Now What model, which is Now What. Create an action plan for the future based on the answers that you've come up with.

• What am I going to do differently next time?

So these three models are really designed to, as I've said before, give a bit of scaffolding and a bit of structure around how we can reflect with intention rather than ruminate, how we can self-assess rather than be self-critical.

So we want to be leaning into these questions, leaning into this reflection practice with compassion, with bucket loads of curiosity and without judgement. So we're not going back and saying, "I'm such an idiot." We're going back and saying, "I wonder what led to that behaviour? What could I do that might be different? And how might I be able to learn that skill so that I'm prepared next time?"

I hope that this has been a helpful process for you and that you've been able to live and learn, right? I think reflection is a critical part of us being able to self-assess, raise our level of self-awareness, be intentional with how we show up and how we behave and then move forward with that intention so that you know in years in the future and days and when we're doing future reflection we look back and say yeah that's exactly how I wanted to show up or maybe oof I can make a little tweak here or a little tweak there.

Or maybe that behavior, that experience, that value is no longer aligned with what's important to me. Here's how I'm going to build upon it and iterate over time so that we just keep getting more aligned, more purpose driven and better.

I hope that has been helpful for you. As always, thank you so much for joining me. If this has been useful, please like, comment, share, subscribe. I feel like I'm a YouTuber now having to say all those things at the end, but honestly any engagement and interaction that you have with our podcast and with our posts promoting the podcast are really very much valued and appreciated.

Happy reflecting. See you next time. See you next time for planning. Gonna be fun!

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