In our fast-paced lives, carving out the time to hit the pause button— to just sit and think — might seem like an impossible luxury. But exceptional collaborators understand that making room in our schedules for daily reflection is far from luxury.
Reflection is an essential practice that increases our ability to better understand and engage with others, to enhance our ability to sense opportunities and challenges and respond appropriately, and to become more productive, effective collaborators.
The Importance of Daily Reflection
So why is reflection such an important tool? The benefits of daily reflection are many, but here are three that are especially important to collaborators:
Recharge your best creative self: Collaborating is challenging — it takes partners who can contribute their highest and greatest creative potential to a shared purpose. But this doesn’t happen if we are spread too thin. Taking time to reflect and recharge is essential for bringing our best creative selves to the table each day.
Build the capacity to embrace change: We live in times of unprecedented change. The capacity to embrace this change and uncertainty is a much-needed skill, especially within a dynamic collaboration. Regular, purposeful reflection helps make room within ourselves to sense and embrace change as it comes.
Take a step back: When we are wrapped up in the day-to-day, it’s easy to forget to step back and look at the bigger picture. The self awareness that comes from regular reflection helps us remain agile, continuously and dynamically realigning our energies toward our end goal.
How to Create Space for Regular Reflection
A few simple steps can help create a habit of reflection. First, block out time each and every day. Even fifteen minutes, when practiced regularly, can make a huge difference.
Choose a time and space where you can reflect uninterrupted. Put this reflection time on your calendar and resist the urge to cancel when things get busy. This is, in fact, when you need it most.
Also, consider joining or creating an accountability group. This can be as simple as checking in once a week to hear how others are using their reflection time and the value they are seeing from it.