Calm reflection

Thing 5 is nice and relaxed.  Reflecting on the things that come our way; learnings, situations, networks. Calm. Breathe in. Breathe out... Ahhh.

 

I'm a reflector by nature.  But the thing is I'm not one of those writter down-er reflector by nature.  I prefer a good internal monologue in my head.  I reflect on everything (if you haven't noticed by some of my posts) and in most cases, I'm ok with the results.  I get all hyped up at first, brain firing messages everywhere.  Then, after a bit of calm and cool collectedness, I really sit and think in a constructive way.  I've never gotten into the whole reflective writing thing. Though I had to do it for my CILIP Chartership I often had to do much of it retrospectively (don't take away my Chartership please! I meant what I wrote retrospectively!). Give me a good internal monologue any day! 


That being said, I do think there is a real value in the reflective process for evaluating work processes (less personal and more service oriented). I attended a knowledge management training session a few years ago and I really took to the after action review.  Its' a simple yet effective tool that asks you four questions:

What is it?
What is supposed to happen?
What actually happened?
What next?

Ok, ok, so it's super similar to most reflective practices... I just really like the way it handles the difference between expected and actual outcomes.

I guess my feeling about reflective writing practice depends on the situation.  I see a real value in evaluation and reflection both for services and for your own practice. But, I don't think there's a one-size fits all approach.  You have to ask yourself these questions when reflecting:

Who am I reflecting for? (Am I doing this for me or for someone else?)

What do I want the reflection to do? (Is it to evaluate myself or to influence others?)

What reflective method suit the situation? (Should I write a narrative? Will bullet points work? Is reflective thinking more suitable? What about a discussion? )

Do I have the time to reflect properly? (Do I have the time to sit and give the reflection justice? If I did it now would I be able to think objectively? Would there be a better time to do it?)

That's my two cents on reflective practice.

As for CPD23, well, it's forcing me to write reflectively these days. I'm getting out of my head a bit and sharing with you my followers. Hope you enjoy!