Recently, I read a post from Edward O'Brien where he was writing about his personality profile, and how it has influenced his career.
I commented on his post, but want to expand here a little bit more on my own experiences.
Reflection is the key ingredient for self-growth, this is a known fact. However, I figured out I need to be careful and consider several factors.
There are different types of reflection. I noticed, until now, these two types:
The type that stimulates self-growth.
The self-destructive type.
My mind jumps often from one type to another. Often I catch myself in the self-destructive type, as I have a very strong achiever mentality and a very loud, perfection focused inner critic. It is sometimes a challenge, to calm down my spiraling mind, but I am getting better at it. This needs constant practice.
However, I also have to take care of not investing too much time in reflection, as this is actually using the present to think about the past, which can diminish the time I invest in planing and steering my future.