Why Self-Reflect and Take Yourself Off "AutoPilot"

Do you ever find yourself unsatisfied and longing for something different upon achieving a goal that you had been working towards for months or even years. This relates to all your goals, whether they be related to your career, relationships, extracurricular activities, ... You name it! It gets you thinking whether you know yourself anymore. How do you avoid this and constantly work towards what you truly want?

You Have Gone Through This, We Both Know It.

It is the day before your Midterm or your big Appraisal for work. You have been preparing for days, weeks, months, or even years with this task taking a considerable amount of your focus. Fast-forward to when you finally complete that task or goal that you have been so focused on completing. What do you do now? You celebrate and relax by spending time or going out with friends or family, watching a TV show or movie, or however you celebrate. How long does that last before you begin working towards your next deadline? Wait, scratch that! You may not even have time to relax, your next appraisal or midterm is in 3 days, and maybe it's for something completely different such as extracurricular activity or volunteer role. Your mind is always busy as you are always working on something. There is nothing wrong with this lifestyle as it is productive. However, picture all this effort going towards something that you actually do not really want and that you only realize that it no longer satisfied you after the months and years of working towards it. You would feel like the person in the picture up there.

How do you avoid this and lead a productive life where you work towards goals that you want and are aware of when to change your goals? This is where self-reflecting comes in.

What is Self-reflecting and Why do it?

I am the same person today that I was a year ago when I made the life plans that I am following today…. right? Think back to a conversation that you had with someone or something that you observed that really impacted you and changed the way you thought.

Throughout your life, you are constantly intaking information through interactions with others, through conversations, videos & posts through social media, books and other academic resources, ... etc. However, if you do not process this information, then you do not tap into the potential it has on developing you into a more experienced and well-informed individual. Self-reflecting refers to deeply thinking of your previous life experiences and connecting them to one another in order to learn and develop as an individual. Therefore, you are constantly changing when you self-reflect as more experiences as joining to help shape your mind.

"We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience." - John Dewey

You can't Self-reflect if you are on "Autopilot"

Okay, so I would like for you to sit down with yourself and reflect on your experiences. That sounds easy, but why is it that many people do not self-reflect? We are back to the day you finish your midterm/assignment or work-related task and you are about to celebrate/rest, if you have enough time, and then immediately work towards the next task or deadline. What is next? You are going to repeat this process that you set in place months or years ago when you accepted your offer to University/College, your job offer, or extracurricular activity position. You understand the message that I am trying to deliver in this paragraph, you are going through your life on AUTOPILOT.

Some of you may have already used that term, “autopilot”, to describe your lifestyle. You are using most of your focus and resources to meet deadlines that once achieved, you replace with other deadlines that are placed before you as a result of a plan that the old “you” put before the current “you” months or years ago. Even your recovery schedule is part of a routine, you do the same thing to recover: go to the same restaurant, club, watch another show/movie... Nothing is wrong with that as long as you take breaks from being on “autopilot”.

Taking breaks is important as self-reflecting requires attention and time in order for one to process experiences deeply and connect them to one another. Therefore, if you do not allocate the time and focus to reflecting, the memories of your experiences build up. As a result, if you remain on "autopilot", you will only self-reflect on the experiences that you have throughout your journey at the end and your priorities may change. Thus, you may no longer find that the goal that you had been working towards for so long to be as important to you as other things.

Therefore, you need to constantly engage in self-talk and discover who you are throughout your life as your life experiences constantly change you. Once you gain the clarity to know who you are and what your priorities are, you need to assess whether the path you are on, the one laid by the “old you”, however long ago, is still leading you towards your current aspirations or if those have changed.

The Map with the Moving "X" Analogy:

I like analogies so here’s one: You are given a map and told that you need to get to the destination marked "X" on the map. You start driving to that destination and upon arriving there, you reference your map to make sure that you are at the right location. To your surprise, the "X" is now at a different location on the map. You drove for days, months, or even years towards that set address, but you were supposed to keep referencing your map to see if the location of the "X" was changing. The "X" represents a specific goal and the action of looking at the map represents the process of self-reflecting. For some goals, the "X" may not move greatly on the map as your experiences do not really affect your attitude towards that goal. On the other hand, with some goals, the "X" might end up on the other side of the map!

Why would anyone not reference their map throughout the journey and constantly update the coordinates that they input into their GPS knowing that the "X" is moving? Many of us fear processing new information as it leads to confronting the possibility of a required change. This does not sit well with our innate fear of discomfort (refer to previous blog). In addition, we get caught up in our routines and keep our mind busy by going out, engaging in small talk, listening to music, playing video games... There is nothing wrong with doing these in moderation, but sometimes you are constantly engaging your mind and taking away from the time required to self-reflect and assess whether a change in your life is required or not.

Real-life Example

Many individuals go into an undergraduate program knowing exactly what they want to do their graduate degree in. As a result, they volunteer in many different settings to improve their application and are doing everything that they can in order to get into this program. Their mind is so busy working towards this goal and in their free time, they are keeping their mind occupied with music, small talk, ...etc in order to avoid the potential discomfort if they realize that they no longer have that same goal. However, some of these individuals get into the graduate program that they were working towards and finally take the opportunity to reflect and may realize that they have volunteered in other fields that they enjoyed more than what they are doing. This could have been avoided if they were reflecting throughout those years on their experiences. They may have come across new career paths that they would have enjoyed more and now they fear changing careers as they have invested so much time and effort. This is similar to driving to the "X" and realizing that it moved, but having used up most of the car's gas.

How I used this in my Life.

I will go ahead and share my experience with you: I was visiting my home country, Egypt, in the Summer of 2016 and we were staying at a luxurious gated neighbourhood on the Mediterranean Sea, enjoying the beautiful sandy beaches and clear blue water. One day, we left the gated neighbourhood and went deeper inland, into the town, in order to get bread and groceries for a cheaper price. There we saw the residents of that area that have lived there for generations, living at a state below that which many would be comfortable even hearing about. I am not going to lie to you and say that I immediately reflected on this moment and changed as a person because that is not what happened. I went back to the beach that day, having no idea that most of the local residents cannot access their city’s beaches because most of the coastline has been sold to companies that build gated communities. As for what I experienced that day, that was buried somewhere in my memory. One year later, I watched a Ted Talk on privilege and oppression. The speaker stated that privilege comes with power and the potential to advocate for individuals with less privilege. This was all great information, but I did not think of how it involves me until a few months later.

It was the Summer of 2018 when I connected the dots and realized what I want to dedicate my life to. There I was on a ridge in Hawaii, 3000 feet above sea-level and with no access to wi-fi. My two friends, Dawson and Kyle, and I were talking about our life experiences and the impact that we wanted to have on the world. I had been so busy with university and my extracurricular activities that I had not stopped to think of what the current "me" wanted to do with my life. I have been interested in starting a career as a healthcare professional for years due to my passion about the human body and the rewarding feeling that I receive from helping others. However, now that I was free from distractions, I was free to self-reflect on my drive to become a healthcare professional, the Ted Talk, and my experience in Egypt. I realized that I have been very luck in terms of the privileges that I was born with and that memory in Egypt proved to me that not all people were born with access to the same resources. Furthermore, it was clear to me that I had the potential to make a difference because of these privileges and I am driven to make a difference to contribute to balancing the playing field in life. Additionally, I became driven to tie this to my passion of working as a healthcare professional by working in communities that do not have the same access to healthcare that I do as a Canadian Resident. In conclusion, I truly see myself as a different individual after that backpacking trip in Hawaii where I was free from many distractions and free to see what my experiences have shaped me into. Lastly, knowing who I am helps me plan accordingly and work towards goal that will truly satisfy me.

Last Thoughts

Take charge of your life and do not fear taking yourself off "autopilot" even if it means that you potentially need to make a change in your life. Furthermore, skip the small talk and engage in conversations that challenge you, setting you on a journey of discovering your views of the world. Additionally, makes small changes such as not listening to music on the bus or minimizing the time you spend on your phone when you are "free". Instead, use this time to think about what you experienced that day and how it affects your views of the world and your existing goals.