Goals, objectives and reflective habits

To make the most of reflection, use it to help you create and achieve goals and objectives, and through this build a reflective habit.

Reflecting on a single experience can produce significant value and increased learning from that experience.  However, reflection’s greatest value comes when you build a reflective habit and mindset and align this with your own set of values, goals and objectives.   This allows you to own and steer your progress, development and impact in your studies or career, your communities and your personal life.

Building a reflective habit and mindset typically combines these  key elements:

• An ability and willingness to reflect on individual experiences to gain more learning from them.
• Repeating reflection over a series of related experiences and extended period, building the learning and value each time you  go through the reflective cycle.
• Regularly reflecting over a longer timeframe to see patterns and opportunities for learning that you may have missed.
• Setting and reflecting on goals and objectives to help create purposeful progress and keep your focus and energy where you want it. 

Terms such as ‘goals’, ‘objectives’, ‘habits’ and ‘values’ can have multiple meanings and connotations.  For clarity, in this section we use the following definitions.

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Adding value by repeating reflection over a series of experiences

Some people think of reflection as a process that is applied to distinct, individual experiences.  The basic process follows the ERA model – Experience, Reflection, Action – and almost all other reflective models have a similar underlying structure that expands on this.

In reality, one of the biggest values of reflection comes when we repeat the reflective process again and again for a series of experiences.  As a result, a lot of reflective models are circular – following an experience we reflect on it and identify learning and actions that we can feed into future experiences.

We can therefore turn an individual reflective cycle into an ongoing process of reflection, increasing the learning and value each time we go through the reflective cycle. 

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By building an ongoing process of reflection  you create significant additional value.  This can include:

• Strengthening your reflective skills and habits – reflection becomes easier, quicker, more natural and more effective, and it often also becomes easier to recognise opportunities for reflection.
• Producing deeper reflections that surface enhanced learning and self-awareness, and ensure less learning is lost.
• Being more purposeful about how  you use your time and energy to greatest effect for yourself  and for others, in  studies,  careers,  communities and your personal life.

Using reflection to look at a longer timeframe

Reflecting repeatedly over a series of short-term experiences is not the only way to gain extra value from the reflective process.  You can also reflect over longer timeframes and use this to see things  you may have missed such as patterns or opportunities for learning.  Having some distance from the experience itself can also help ensure you  are able to reflect on it with less emotion and more criticality. 

For example, some people find it helpful to add structure to their reflective habit by deciding they will always reflect on a specific  day,  week or month or time of year.  Thisis often done using:

• a set of prompts for general and broad reflection for example, ‘What were my biggest challenges and highlights over the last day/week/month/year?’
• a set of specific topics you  want to reflect on, for example, ‘Situations where I had/could have had a positive impact on those around me over the last week’ or ‘Experiences where I used my critical thinking over the last day’.

Creating purposeful progress through goals and objectives

A reflective habit is a powerful tool to increase your learning, development and self-awareness based on your experiences. Aligning this with a specific set of values, goals and objectives that are personally or professionally meaningful to you allows you to achieve progress that is purposeful and head in the direction you want, ultimately bringing you closer to the life that is right for you.

Setting goals and objectives

The act of identifying your own values, goals and objectives is reflective. It requires self-awareness and an understanding of the opportunities, restrictions and barriers around you.  Setting goals gives you an ideal to work towards, and reviewing your progress reflectively can help you:

• optimise your time, energy and performance
• capitalise on opportunities, work effectively within any fixed restrictions, identify and tackle, or circumvent, barriers
• check that your values, goals and objectives are aligned with each other and with how you are spending your time
• re-evaluate your goals and refine or revise the strategies you have for achieving them
• increase your self-awareness and develop and/or strengthen your skills and abilities.

Using regular reflection to monitor progress and revise plans

One of the easiest ways to track progress against your goals and objectives, and how these are supporting your values, is to schedule a regular reflection on each of them.  Many people use daily, weekly or monthly reflective check-ins to review their progress. 

Regular, scheduled reflections are often used to:

• increase your awareness of your overall progress
• identify progress, opportunities, barriers and plans for specific aspects
• inform and shape future actions and plans.

Example:   You may want to increase  your impact in  your part-time job or volunteering role because  you are interested in pursuing a career in this field .  In your  weekly reflective check-in,  you identify  some progress in better supporting  the people you are working/volunteering with.  But you  may also realise that all the impact has been in a narrow area and will not help you  develop the broader experience and understanding needed to build a career in this field.  As a result,  you may adjust  your plans and next week will indicate  your interest in becoming involved in opportunities in other areas, and over the next month will look for chances to support and learn more from people in other areas.

Reflecting for self-awareness (within Reflection Toolkit)

Structured reviews

Structured reviews often involve setting criteria  to assess how ‘successful’ you have been, to identify areas requiring more work and to spot strategies that are working well for you.  Criteria could be based around quantity (e.g. how often or how much time you managed to spend with your friends/family), quality (e.g. how good your time with friends/family was), and/or progress (e.g. how rejuvenated you feel in comparison to last time).  Some people like to score themselves against each of the criteria, others use descriptions and text.  The criteria are used to:

• look ahead and specify what you hope to achieve between now and your next review
• look back at whether  you have managed to be successful since your last review
• identify what you can learn as a result and what your next plans should be
• look ahead and specify what you hope to achieve with these new plans, taking account of what you know about what is coming up.

This cycle can continue for as long as it is useful.  It is helpful to sometimes also review how your approach to reflecting can be improved.

Reflective prompts

Prompts can be used both on a larger scale looking at your process and progress, and on a smaller scale with less challenging questions, which are more easily used frequently, reviewing small periods of time. Adjust over time as you find what works for you.

Some smaller scale questions  to review periods like days and weeks can include:

• What were 3 things that went well today/this week? How do  I know?
• What was a situation today/this week where I could have done better? How?
• What was  my biggest challenge today/this week? How did  I overcome it?
• What was the predominant feeling  I had today/this week? Why?
• What made  me happy/sad/frustrated/angry/etc today/this week? Can I  find some way of having more or less of the identified aspects?

Some large scale questions  include:

• Am I optimising my time, energy and performance according to my values, goals and objectives?
• Am I making the most of opportunities available to me?  Am I working effectively within any fixed restrictions?  Where there are barriers, am I identifying them and tackling or circumventing them where possible?
• Do my values, goals and objectives still align with each other?  Is this reflected in how I am spending my time?
• Are my goals still the right ones to deliver on my values?  Should/can I refine or revise the strategies I am using for fulfilling my values and goals?

As with structured reviews, the cycle of planning ahead, reviewing experience, extracting learning and planning for what is coming up next, can be continued for as long as it is useful.  It is helpful to sometimes also review how your approach to reflecting can be improved.