How often do you pause to learn?

If you’re like most people, you probably think about what happened during the day—maybe on your ride home, maybe at home with your spouse or your friends, maybe in the middle of the night when you are trying to sleep but can’t seem to turn your brain off.

However, just thinking about what happened during the day, and probably beating yourself up about it, is not learning. That takes an additional step: reflection.

Athletes, actors, and musicians record their performances and watch the tape. They look at their performance and make notes about what they can do to improve. Some organizations and military groups use an after-action report as a way to debrief what happened, what they learned, and how they want to apply those lessons in the future.

This act of reflection—a pause before moving on to the next thing—gives us a chance to grow from our experiences. This is especially important for leaders, because it’s one of the best tools available to us if we want to learn from our successes, learn from our mistakes, and learn from the example of others.

Ultimately, to get the most out of the lessons that life teaches us, you must reflect. You must review your thoughts, actions, and impact. How do you do that? By asking yourself four key questions.

REASONS FOR SELF-REVIEW
Why is it important to review our thoughts, actions, and impact? First of all, our actions impact others, whether we recognize it or not. Our actions can lift others up, leaving them inspired and standing a bit taller, or we can knock them down, leaving them feeling hurt or more diminished than we found them.

We don’t have to end up in the principal’s office to be reminded that our actions have consequences. The question is not just what impact do we want to have on other people, but what impact are we actually having?

Not only do our actions have an impact, but our thoughts do as well. Our thoughts and emotional responses to an event influence the choices we make, which influence the actions we take, which result in an impact. Our thoughts and resulting actions have an impact in the moment and over time.

To realize our potential, we must pause a little more. That gives us space to make a few more conscious choices that align with the impact we want to have on others. Make those choices over a lifetime, and imagine the impact you could have.

YOUR THOUGHTS MATTER
Our thoughts can be a source of emotional well-being. When my thinking grows negative and I think everything is terrible and everyone is evil and the universe has it in for me, that is a good sign that I’m burned out or tired or hungry. In these situations, my negative thoughts can spiral out of control.

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