Do you know what you want most out of life? What about your goals or desires? One of the most useful ways to understand how you can create the life you want and to become the best version of yourself is to ask self-reflective questions.
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What is a self-reflective question?
A self-reflective question is a question that enables you to reflect on who you are. And these types of questions allow you to unlock your thoughts and emotions. They help you to learn more about yourself.
Self-reflective questions can be about a range of topics and areas of your life. It is an individual process and so your focus may not be in some areas. The areas could include:
- Emotional, physical and mental health and wellbeing
- Personal growth
- Purpose and vision of future life
- Home life and space
- Relationships
- Spiritual views and beliefs
- Hobbies and interests
- Work/Career
- Money management
The questions in these areas can be about your past experiences,4 your current experiences and your future. Therefore, allowing you to reflect on how these experiences impacted your life and how they can he you to move forward.
Why as self-reflective questions?
If you want to live a more intentional, fulfilling life, you need to understand who you are and what you ant from your life. This is where self-reflective questions and prompts are helpful.
These questions and prompts will help you to identify areas in your life that you want to work on, enabling you to learn about your thoughts and decision-making process. These questions and prompts will help you to make goals and manifest what you want for your future. This practice can be useful for when you are feeling a little lost.
What is the purpose of self-reflection?
Self-reflection is an important element o your self-care, your personal growth and development. When you practise any form of reflection, it enables you to become more self-aware and connect with your authentic self.
If you regularly reach for your journal and invest this self-reflection, you will find yourself focusing more on what you want to achieve and how you do it. What’s more you will notice you’ll have a more positive mindset instead of mulling over the past.
How to answer your self-reflective questions:
- Allocate a time to sit and think.
- Remove all distractions, sit in a quiet and comfortable place.
- You should stat with the questions that catch your eye or that jump out at you to explore.
- Allow yourself to just wite, no restrictions, just let your words flow. Do not hold back.
- Be completely honest. If you aren’t willing to be honest with yourself and with these questions, there is no pint in this practice.
- Do not worry about what you may uncover; give yourself grace to be honest, open and raw.
It can be helpful to have a designated journal or notebook, so you can write these self-reflective questions and prompts, making that your honest space.
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45 self-reflective questions to ask yourself:
- What do I love about my life?
- What do I feel like my life is missing?
- Where do I want to be in 5 years time?
- What am I grateful for?
- How am I feeling right now?
- What scares me the most right now?
- What worries me most about the future?
- Am I holding on to something that I need to let go of?
- What matters most in my life?
- What can I learn from my biggest mistake?
- What is life asking of me?
- Who has the most impact on my life right now?
- What do I need to change about myself?
- Why do I matter?
- Am I using a healthy perspective?
- Am I using my time wisely?
- Who am I?
- What struggles have I fought and overcome in my life?
- What past experiences am I most grateful for?
- What is the bravest thing I have done so far?
- What are some of the best moments in life so far?
- What are some of my future, long-term goals?
- What is one task that I have completed from my bucket list that I’m proud of?
- What are my priorities tight now?
- Do I like my job? If not, what would improve it?
- What is going to bring me joy this week/month/year?
- What is on my bucket list?
- If I had more time to do what I love, what would I do?
- How can I share more gratitude?
- What do I find myself complaining about the most?
- What are my strengths and my weaknesses?
- What helps to keep me grounded?
- How could I take better care of myself? How could I put this into practice?
- What does self-love mean to me?
- How can I love myself more?
- Do I love myself?
- What relationships am I happy with?
- What relationships am I neglecting?
- Whose opinions do I value the most? Why is that?
- Who do I look up to the most? Why?
- Are there any toxic relationships in my life that I need to remove?
- What qualities do I most admire in others that I wish I had myself?
- What motivates me?
- What does success look like to me?
- What advice or encouragement would I give to my future self?
Could you answer any of these? Have you used journal prompts? I’d love to hear in the comments.
I agree, self-reflection is so important to take us where we want to go, and who we want to be. It’s also becoming so much more important as a learning tool and for self development and improvement. It’s not something that comes naturally to many people, so your post is great. You’re providing an outline of what to do, and a lot of good questions to ask oneself
Thank you. I am glad you could relate to this blog post. Thank you for reading and commenting.
Fab post, we never take enough time to sit back, take stock and reflect
Thank you for reading and commenting.
Great post, love these suggestions and they will certainly encourage me to sit down and reflect – thank you
Thank you for reading and commenting. I hope they help you.
Thanks for this post, really useful. I love the list of questions to help anyone practising self-reflection put in some structure.
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These are truly introspective questions. Definitely a great exercise. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for reading and commenting.
Thank you for sharing this self-reflection guide. The questions are brilliant! Will definitely revisit.
Thank you. I am glad you found the questions helpful.
Great article. Lots of good questions. What I appreciate most is that you included how to answer your self-reflecting questions. There are times when an individule might like to ponder about something however can end up just drawing a blank. Your suggestions come in handy to help get the ball rolling.
For people who do not journal, being journaling tends to promote writing down your thoughts. How often do you believe a person should set aside time for self reflection?
I think don’t put a time limit on it, as that can cause pressure to get it all done in that time. But just know whether you want to do it first thing in the morning or before bed. Once you have journaled for a while you will find a routine that works for you. Thank you for sharing.
It is really important to reflect at times, perhaps at the end of the month or at the start of a new year. You could use these as journal prompts x
That is a good idea. I found these helpful when I felt a little lost. Thank you for sharing.
Great questions, from time to time I do this and ask myself questions to know myself better.
That’s great you already do this practice. Thank you for reading and commenting.
These are good questions to ask yourself. I need to spend some time asking myself these questions. Maybe I’ll do it in my journal soon. Thank you for sharing.
I hope you find these questions helpful. Thank you for reading and commenting.
These were really deep questions and if one takes time answering them, they could uncover a lot of meaningful information and feelings. Thank you so much for sharing, really helpful post 💛
Thank you for reading and commenting.
I already new some of these but am glad to learn more ways to do a self reflective assessment from your post!
I am glad you were able to relate to this post. Thank you for reading and commenting.
Nice list Lauren! These would make a nice tea bag series. I have seen packages with inspiring quotes and “tea topics” where you have conversation prompts on the bag tags. These would make a meaningful addition.
I am glad you found it helpful. Thank you for reading and commenting.
These are amazing reflective questions. Thank you so much for sharing! Reflecting at the start of a new season is a great idea.
I am glad you found the questions helpful. Thank you for reading and commenting.
There are some really deep questions here and I will have to really sit with those ones and take time to answer them (and probably journal using them). Thanks for this; I think reflecting in this way at a couple of points throughout each year is a useful idea!
I am glad you found this post helpful. Enjoy exploring these in your journal. Thank you for reading and commenting.
Self -reflection is so very important – a very great list!
I hope it helps you. Thank you for reading and commenting.
this is a great list of questions, Lauren! I love reflecting on myself, my goals & aspirations. It’s wonderful for self growth.
Thank you for reading and commenting.
Self reflection is necessary and should be continuous honestly. I appreciate your questions and enjoyed reading your post. 😊
Pastor Natalie (Examine This Moment)
Letstakeamoment.com
What a great list of prompts. I’m going to do these in the morning to start my day right!
That’s awesome. I hope the journal prompts help you learn more about yourself. Thank you for reading and commenting.
Reflect on your thoughts and feelings: Once you are in a quiet and comfortable place, take some time to reflect on your thoughts and feelings. Pay attention to how you feel and what thoughts come to your mind.
You really share your thoughts so nicely and I admire a lot! You are just so knowledgeable and nice and I think that you share a lot of things in a very nice way! Great👍😊👏👏
Thank you for reading.
Your always welcome and you deserve it❤😌
beautiful