Its Benefits and How to Practice

By focusing inside, you can strengthen your sense of self, establish a connection with your inner self, and obtain understanding of your thoughts, emotions, and actions. And this will help you accomplish your life goals, make wiser decisions, and create stronger, more meaningful relationships.

The golden rule of any introspection session is that mood and space matter. It’s usually because of a recency effect, a cognitive bias in which those ideas, or arguments that came last are remembered more clearly than those that came first. For example, imagine that you did a bunch of preparation tests and failed. Then you decided to reflect on it, you were in a terrible mood and had failed tests lying around. In a such case, only negative thoughts will come to mind.

Journaling or free writing allows you to express your feelings and emotions and write about your personal and professional experiences. Once everything that was in your brain is on paper, you can reflect on what you wrote to identify patterns and gain clarity about your life.

The Johari window is a framework for understanding your relationship with yourself and others. Think of it as a way to look at what we know about ourselves and what others know about us. It's like a window with four parts:

1. Things everyone knows.
2. Things others see, but you don't.
3. Things you keep secret.
4. Mystery things.

If you feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to start to better understand your inner self and uncover your motivation in life, writing down pre-planned questions can help. Having pre-planned questions will also allow you to easily incorporate self-reflection into your daily routine.

Also, Tasha Eurich’s research proved that “Why” questions trap us in our past, while “what” questions help us create a better future.