As a training or coaching professional, you’ll want to ensure that your learners and students get the best possible learning experience. In fact, all professionals want the same thing for their customers, clients or service users.
When you’re providing a service – any service, you’re constantly working to serve the needs of others. Setting time aside for regular self-reflection gives you that all-important personal headspace that will improve your emotional wellbeing and reduce your day-to-day stress-levels.
Self-reflective practice also improves your professional skills that helps you better serve the needs of those who you support.
This article is about self-reflective practices for trainers, education providers and those who coach others.
We will discuss:
What does Self-Reflective Practice mean?
Self-reflection is not about being selfish or getting caught up in your own thoughts, nor is it about being overly self-congratulatory or self-critical. It’s also worth noting that this is not the same thing as self-care – although, self-care is also important for your personal and professional well-being.
Self-reflection means taking a step back and reflecting on:
- Your recent performance at work
- Your professional strengths and weaknesses
- Areas where you need to improve
- Recent situations that you could have handled differently
- Outcomes of your recent work, could they have been different?
- Your process and current way(s) of working
- The impact of your work
A reflective practitioner does not criticise or berate themselves; they seek ways to improve. This means taking professional responsibility for your own development
Why Self Reflection is Important for Trainers
Spending time on self-reflection will benefit your career as well as other areas of your life. Think of it as an activity for your emotional health as well as professional development.
Continuous reflective practice will help you become a better trainer and achieve better outcomes for the learners who you support.
Here are some of the key benefits of self-reflection:
Skill Development
During reflective practice, you can identify opportunities to improve your professional skills. For example, if you’ve been frustrated because a certain task is taking longer than you’d like, by taking a step back to evaluate your own approach to work, you’re enabling yourself to think of new solutions.
Self-reflection itself is also a skill that needs to be learned and refined.
Personal Development
Getting into the habit of self-reflective practice can improve other areas of your life, not just your career. You can use the same techniques in this article to reflect on your actions outside of work, your personal relationships or even your habits.
You can use self-reflection to get healthier, fitter, stop smoking or eat a better diet.
Self-reflection is also self-improvement – there are wider benefits, beyond professional improvement.
Build Better Relationships with Learners and Colleagues
Many people find that, during self-reflection, they’re able to scrutinise their own actions and behaviour around others, and then take steps to address any potential conflicts.
For example, we’re often self-critical or we have intrusive thoughts like “I wish I’d never said that” or “I could have handled that conversation differently”. Self-reflection means you consider an alternative that you can refer to in the future – essentially taking active steps to learn from your own errors.
By taking this responsibility for yourself, you can build better and more positive relationships with students and colleagues.
Tools and Techniques for Self-Reflection
Here are some methods you can use in your own self-reflective practice:
1. Keep a Reflective Diary or Journal
This is a quick and easy way to begin with self-reflection. Using any diary or notebook, at the end of every day, get into the habit of writing down the following things:
- What went well? Write down 1-3 things that went well today. It could be something big, like finishing a large project before the deadline, or something small like getting some positive feedback on Social Media
- What could have gone better? Write down something that didn’t go as planned, that took longer than you expected or had an unexpected outcome. Think about how you could have changed your process and how this may have changed things.
- If you could do one thing differently today, what would it be? Again, this could be as major or seemingly minor as you like. For example – I would have spent less time on […]
- What is your goal for tomorrow? Make sure this is a goal – something that you’re aiming for or working towards – rather than a ‘to-do’ list!
Try to get into the habit of spending 10-15 minutes on this at the end of every working day. Writing it down is important, rather than just thinking about it, so that you have a record of your thoughts to look back on as you develop and change.
Remember – this is an exercise for your benefit – the notes don’t have to be neat as they’re only for you to read. Unless you’re anything like me – writing things out neatly helps me organise my thoughts and messy notes just make me feel ever more stressed!
If writing really isn’t appealing to you, you could also take notes or doodles using your computer, phone or any App you prefer. You could even record voice notes into your phone if that’s easier or quicker for you.
As you get into this habit of reflective journaling, you’ll have a personal record to look back on years into the future too! Documenting your reflective practice is also important or Continuous Professional Development.
2. Self-Talk
How do you talk to yourself in your mind? It’s time to work on your self-talk and make sure that it’s positive and productive!
If you constantly find that you’re being hard on yourself after every seemingly small mistake or challenge you face at work, here are some questions to ask yourself to turn your critical self-talk into something more valuable:
- Something bad just happened – why did it happen; how did my actions contribute to this?
- What would happen if I did […] instead?
- What will I do next time to get a better outcome?
In the words of Tina Turner “It’s not what happens to us that matters, it’s what how we deal with it”
See also: Emotional Resilience: How do you bounce back?
3. Prioritise your Wellbeing
Remember that self-reflection is also self-improvement. Part of your reflective practice should include reflecting upon your own wellbeing at work.
- Are you working too hard and not taking enough time for yourself?
- Are your personal relationships suffering because of your work?
- Have you scheduled enough time for both self-reflection and self-care?
- Are you connecting with your friends and family outside of work?
- Do you have time to spend on your personal hobbies? If not, how can you make time?
It’s important to have a balanced life – no one wants to be ‘all work and no play’.
4. Seek Input from Others
During reflective practice, it can be useful to gather constructive feedback from other professionals. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can share your own thoughts and reflections with your colleagues. By talking openly with your colleagues in this way, it’s highly likely that you’ll share some similar reflections with others, so this also boosts positive working relationships at the same time.
This is also an opportunity for collaborative problem solving, Shared reflection sessions often leave participants feeling as if they’re not alone with their professional challenges.
Seeking views from others can be extremely valuable in taking your reflective practice to the next level, to evaluate your impact more deeply and see things from new perspectives that you had not previously considered.
Want to put it into practice?
Join us in June 2024 for our Reflective Practice for Trainers and Assessors workshop.
This is your perfect opportunity for self-reflection.
