The Link Between Reflection and Personal Development
Reflection is a way of knowing and creating meaning from experience. Reflection is a mental process focused on developing positive thoughts that drive purposeful action to improve one’s personal and professional practices. Reflection is a relational process that draws connections between private ideas, and public interactions between individuals and groups.
Solitary reflection results in an individual understanding and making sense of complex or perplexing experiences. Often this requires mentally ‘re-envisioning’ an experience several times to recall and solidify the event as a ‘thought object’ in as much detail as possible.
By examining an idea or experience privately in the workshop of one’s own mind, eventually, it becomes easier to articulate and share the idea publicly.
Reflecting with others offers new ways of looking at ideas and perspectives directly shifting ongoing experiences and understanding. The resulting cross-fertilization of well-examined ideas can result in a better collective understanding of a topic among interested individuals.
How Do I Learn Reflection?
Reflection can be difficult to learn for those unaccustomed to the nuances inherent within the process. Central to the development of reflection is the concept of ‘reflective capacity’ — an individual’s ability, desire, and tendency to engage in reflective thought.
This involves developing the skills to draw upon a wide range of personal experience and the experience of others to frame one’s judgments and shape one’s actions in the world.
Reflection is considered by many to be the most important part of professionalism and equally serves our personal development.
When reflective practice is done poorly, without due regard to wider reference-points beyond one’s own experience, then reflection risks becoming ‘ritualistic’ navel-gazing, or worse, an exercise in narcissistic self-affirmation.
In a 2021 article published in the Journal of Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, the authors based at the University of the West of Scotland present their positive findings on the use of the modified Reflective Practice Questionnaire (RPQ) as a reliable tool for assessing people’s reflective capacity, and by extension their attitude towards reflective practice in a wide variety of professional and academic settings.
The remainder of this article presents the RPQ ‘tool’ so that you may use it to develop and incrementally improve your personal and professional reflective capabilities.
Modified Reflective Practice Questionnaire
Reflective In Action (during)
1 — During my interactions with others, I recognize when my pre-existing beliefs are influencing the interaction.
2 — During my interactions with others, I consider how my personal thoughts and feelings are influencing the interaction.
3 — During my interactions with others, I recognize when others’ pre-existing beliefs are influencing the interaction.
4 — During my interactions with others, I consider how their personal thoughts and feelings are influencing the interaction.
Reflective On Action (after)
5 — After interacting with others, I spend time thinking about what was said and done.
6 — After interacting with others, I wonder about their experience of the interaction.
7 — After interacting with others, I wonder about my own experience of the interaction.
8 — After interacting with others, I think about how things went during the interaction.
Reflective With Others
9 — When reflecting with others about my work and life, I become aware of things I had not previously considered.
10 — When reflecting with others about my work and life, I develop new perspectives.
11 — I find that reflecting with others about my work and life helps me to work out problems I might be having.
12 — I gain new insights when reflecting with others about my work and life.
Self-Appraisal
13 — I think about my strengths for working with others.
14 — I think about my weaknesses for working with others.
15 — I think about how I might improve my ability to work with others.
16 — I critically evaluate the strategies and techniques I use in my work with others.
Desire for Improvement
17 — I think I still have a lot of things to learn in order to improve my ability to work with others.
18 — I would like to learn new skills in order to improve my ability to work with others.
19 — I desire more knowledge to improve my ability to work with others.
20 — I desire more experience to improve my ability to work with others.
Confidence — General
21 — I have all the experience I require to effectively interact with others.
22 — I have all the practical skills I require to effectively interact with others.
23 — I have learned everything I need to know in order to effectively interact with others.
24 — I have all the theoretical knowledge I require to effectively interact with others.
Confidence — Communication
25 — I think I am good at creating a safe environment so that others feel comfortable enough to share information with me.
26 — I feel confident sharing my thinking with others.
27 — I am good at providing clear messages to others.
28 — I am good at listening to others with genuine curiosity.
Uncertainty
29 — Sometimes I am unsure if my plans for others is the best possible way to proceed.
30 — Sometimes I am unsure if I am interpreting others‘ needs correctly.
31 — Sometimes I am unsure how to handle the needs of others.
32 — Sometimes I am unsure that I properly understand the needs of others.
Stress Interacting With Others
33 — Sometimes after interacting with others I feel exhausted.
34 — Sometimes I find interacting with others to be stressful.
35 — There are times when I feel distressed after communicating with others.
36 — The pressure to meet the needs of others can sometimes feel overwhelming.
Job Satisfaction
37 — My work provides me with a lot of fulfillment.
38 — My work means more to me than simply earning money.
39 — I enjoy my work.
40 — There are times when I find myself wishing that I did not have to go to work.