The CARL framework of

reflection
This framework takes you through Context, Action, Results, and
Learning.
Overview
The CARL model is adapted from a job interview technique where you structure each of your
answers according to the different aspect of the model. Given the reflective nature of
successfully answering many job interview questions, this model can easily be used in general
to guide your reflective process on experiences. CARL stands for:

 Context: Briefly describe the context of you experience

 Action: Explain what actions you took
 Results: Explain what happened as a result of your actions
 Learning: Identify what you have learned

 
One thing to be conscious of with this model is that it is possible to work through the stages
while only describing at each level. Be sure you stop and ask yourself how and why the things
happened – this will help move it from descriptions to reflections.
Below is further information on the model – each stage is given a fuller description, guiding
questions to ask yourself and a couple of examples of how this might look in a reflection.
This is just one model of reflection. Test it out and see how it works for you. If you find that
only a few of the questions are helpful, focus on those. If you think about each area, you are
likely to engage more critically with your learning experience.

bout the site

Welcome to the Reflection Toolkit.
This is a place where you can find information and support whether you are looking to reflect
yourself or facilitate reflection in others. 
Before you move on, you might want to take a second and ask yourself:

 Why am I on this site?

 What/who brought me here?
 What do I want to take away from this site?
 How will I know I have gotten what I needed?

You might really like answering this kind of question, or you maybe you don’t. In either case,
if you took the time to think about the questions you will have started a reflection. Self-
questioning like this, to better understand ourselves, our motivations, and our experiences, is
at the heart of reflection.
You may very well know the process of reflection under different names, for example
‘reviewing’, 'analysing' or ‘processing’.
Below you can find the different sections that together make the Reflection Toolkit.

Reflectors' Toolkit
This section is for people who want to reflect. You will find resources, models and questions
that can help start your reflections and structure them.

Facilitators' Toolkit
Considerations and information about implementing reflection in courses, workshops and
other initiatives.  
Literature
This section contains a review of literature on reflection and a list of helpful literature to
explore the area further.

Definition of reflection
For the purpose of this site, reflection or critical reflection is defined as:
the conscious examination of past experiences, thoughts and ways of doing things.  Its
goal is to surface learning about oneself and the situation, and to bring meaning to it in
order to inform the present and the future.  It challenges the status quo of practice,
thoughts and assumptions and may therefore inform our decisions, actions, attitudes,
beliefs and understanding about ourselves.
 
Reflection can be used for many things including:

 Allowing us to improve our own practice to gain better outcomes in the future
 Increasing/improving our performance and skills
 Increasing our awareness of our abilities and attributes and our evidence for these
 Developing and expanding our employability
 Evaluating the quality and success of our action plans
 Applying theoretical knowledge/frameworks to real experiences and using this to
expand our understanding of the underlying theory.

Questions, feedback and about us

If you have questions, you didn’t find the things you needed, or have any feedback about the
site - please email us at [email protected].
We want to help and are always looking to improve.
 
The Reflection Toolkit has been created by the Careers Service's Employability Consultancy,
drawing on extensive literature, expertise and practice from across the University and
externally.  Our focus is supporting students' development and using this to enhance their
long-term impact and success.  Reflection is central to personal, professional and academic
development for all of us.
 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0
International Licence.  Lead authors Dr Gavin McCabe and Tobias Thejll-Madsen. 

The model
 The CARL framework of reflection
This model, unlike a fair amount of other reflection models, does not explicitly require further
planned actions. This is not essential for reflection, as identifying new learning is an
extremely valuable process and will in many cases affect practice on its own. The model is
frequently seen in interviews without the ‘learning’ stage; however, it is important to include
this stage in reflection as it allows you to critically extract knowledge and learning from the
situation.
One potential challenge with using this model is that it encourages you to describe throughout
- that is describe the context, the actions, and results and only think about implications in
learning. While there can be benefits from solely describing as it can make you aware of the
consequences of your actions, describing is not the same as being critically reflective. To
ensure that you remain reflective throughout, keep asking yourself the question why – ‘why
did I do what I did?’ etc.
For other models there is a natural place where you introduce and think about relevant
theoretical literature. In this model each step can benefit from literature, as it can help explain
your motivations, for example in actions you might want to use a particular theory to explain
why you chose a specific action above another.
A number of helpful questions are outlined below for each of the sections. You don’t have to
answer all of them, but they can guide you to what sort of things make sense to include in that
section. You might have other questions that work better for you.
 

Context
Here you will set the context for yourself or the reader. Describe what is essential to
understand the situation.
Helpful questions:

 What was the context of the situation?

 What was the situation?
 Where was it?
 Who was there?
 What am I hoping to accomplish?

 
Depending on whether you are presenting the reflection, for example as an interview answer,
or using the model as a helpful framework for your own reflective process, you may wish to
tailor how extensive you are. If doing it for yourself, it can be very helpful to understand a full
comprehensive context, whereas when presenting it to others you may wish to only include
enough that the audience understand the context.

Examples of Context
The examples below show how the reflective process can happen at an overarching process
level and a specific experience level. Both will tackle the same scenario, but their conclusions
can be different. When reflecting both levels can be helpful.

Developing public speaking as a skill Public speaking individual experience

over time

I am currently working on improving my I was given the opportunity to give a

public speaking as a part of my ongoing presentation about my subject to high school
professional development. I could students who might be interested in applying
specifically take opportunities within my to study it. I had 20 minutes and could spend
role as class representative, where I will them as I wished. There were 30 students
have to stand in front of an entire course. present in the auditorium at the high school
where I gave my talk.

Action
Here you can describe what your actions were in relation to the context specified above. To
critically engage with the reflection, it is important not only to describe your actions, but think
about why you did these actions and not something else.
Helpful questions:

 What did I do?

 What else happened (other actions)?
 Why did I choose this action?
 What other actions could I have chosen? (not necessarily giving you the same result)

Examples of Action
Developing public speaking as a skill Public speaking individual experience
over time

Within the class representative network, I I chose to do a PowerPoint presentation with

was made aware of an opportunity to go a lot of practical information on it. It wasn’t
and present our course to high school a particularly nice PowerPoint, I generally
students who might be interested in taking don’t like them with a lot of text, but I didn’t
the course. I signed up despite being prioritise the preparation enough, so I
 slightly time pressured, as I wanted to give needed to create something quickly. I could
myself the chance to practise. I prepared the have spent more time actually making a
presentation, and the public speaking part nicer PowerPoint communicating the value
went well, however I feel that I might have of my course more than the practical aspects.
structured my presentation poorly for the
students to gain the most from it.

Results
Here you can discuss the results that came from your actions and what the implications are of
the results.
Helpful questions:

 Did I accomplish what I wanted?

 Did my actions accomplish what I wanted in the way I expected?
 What are the implications of my actions on myself/others/similar situations in the
future?
 Could different actions have given me the same result?
 Is there a way I could improve my results or actions?

Examples of Results
Developing public speaking as a skill over Public speaking individual experience
time

I gave myself a chance to practise my public I could see that the students were
speaking and I am feeling more comfortable desperately trying to write down everything
standing in front of a group of people now, I said and what was on the slides. However,
just because I have practised. As mentioned I felt confident in my delivery of the
above, I could have structured the content, I didn’t feel a loss of breath or
presentation differently. Having a well- anything, which suggests I’m feeling more
structured presentation would have given confident with public speaking itself. That
me the same feeling of success in terms of said, I didn’t feel like they were actually
public speaking and had a better impact on getting any value from the presentation.
the students. However, from this experience They didn’t seem excited, and no one asked
I now know I can spend less time stressing questions or anything. I think they would
about the public speaking element of it and have gotten more from why they should
spend more time on the actual presentation. study this course, rather than how to apply. I
think equally if I had allowed times for their
questions, they would have gotten much
more value from the situation.

 
Learning
Here you have a chance to conclude using the insights gained from the three sections above. While not
explicitly suggested by the model, if you want to include an action plan this is a natural place to do so.
Helpful questions:

 What did I learn from the experience?

 Would I do the same thing again or would I change something?
 What should I do next time I’m in a similar experience?
 Should I change anything about the way I do things? What?

Examples of Learning
Developing public speaking as a skill over Public speaking individual experience
time

I have learned that I get better at public I have realised if I had spent more time thinking
speaking when I give myself the opportunity to about what information the students needed and
practise in front of people. I will therefore how to present it, it would have been a more
continue to seek out challenges including public impactful experience. The way I presented is an
speaking. However, I have also realised that example of passive learning (people just sitting
while I get similar benefit to my own and receiving information) which has been
development in term of confidence through shown to be less effective than active learning
standing in front of others, I can practise the (people participating in the activity, e.g. Michel
most effective way of delivering the content. In et al, 2009) Therefore, I think using group
the future I have to give myself more time to participation and allowing them to guide the
prepare. discussion by asking questions and following
their interests would have be better. I will ensure
I incorporate interactive activities in my future
presentations.

 
Adopted from
The CAR model of interview techniques, for example BlueSteps (2011) CAR interview
Technique.
 
This article was published on 9 Nov, 2018

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The 5R framework for reflection

The 5R framework for reflection will guide you through Reporting,
Responding, Relating, Reasoning, and Reconstructing to make sense of
a learning experience.
Overview
This framework developed by Bain et al. (for example 2002), focuses on five core stages,
each addressing one aspect of reflection. By thinking about all 5 stages individually you will
engage with all the essential components of reflection, enabling you to produce a critically
engaged reflection based in your experience. This model can also be helpful for structuring
reflective writing.

The 5 stages are:

 Reporting of the context of the experience

 Responding to the experience (observations, feelings, thoughts, etc.)
 Relating the experience to knowledge and skills you already have
 Reasoning about the significant factors/theory to explain the experience
 Reconstructing your practice by planning future actions for a similar experience

 
Below is further information on the model – each stage is given a fuller description, tips about
language use, guiding questions to ask yourself and an example of how this might look in a reflection.
This is just one model of reflection. Test it out and see how it works for you. If you find that only a
few of the questions are helpful, focus on those. However, by thinking about each stage you are likely
to engage more critically with your learning experience.

The model
The 5R framework for reflection
This model lends itself well to structuring both the thinking process and the write-up of a reflection.
To get the full benefit of this model you will have to know the characteristics of each of the 5 R’s.
Being able to recognise the language that is relevant for each step will also benefit you if using the
model for academic reflection.
The ‘Reporting’ and ‘Responding’ can sometimes interlink and be presented as one level. This
highlights the fact that while there is a natural progression through the stages, when producing written
reflections, you might want to write more freely without a clear boundary between the areas.
A number of helpful questions as well as key components are outlined below for each of the stages.
You don’t have to answer all of them, but they can guide you to what sort of things make sense to
include in that stage. You might have other questions that work better for you.
 

Reporting
Here you can present the context with little or no comment or interpretation of the experience.
What to do What’s included Helpful questions
 What happened?
 What are the key
aspects of this
The key elements of the situation
A brief description of the situation?
that are essential for you to
experience/problem or issue  Who was
communicate the context to reader. 
involved?
 What did I do?

 
Key language points: You are reporting on an event that happened so use the past tense.
Helpful phrases are ‘I saw…’, ‘I noticed…’, ‘I/they said…’, ‘I had…’ and words indicating
time such as yesterday, last week, etc.
 Example of Reporting

Yesterday, I had a meeting with my supervisor to discuss my final project. I requested the meeting
as I had a series of concerns about the next steps for my methods section of my report. During the
meeting we got side-tracked, spending 30 minutes talking about my literature review, which did not
leave us enough time to discuss what I needed. As a result, I left with no answers to my concerns.

Responding:
Here you can present your reaction or response to the situation. This can be thoughts, feelings,
and observations.
What to do What’s included Helpful questions
 How did what
happened make me
feel?
Provide your Your feelings and thoughts about the
 What did I think?
personal response to experience, as well as any observations and
the situation. potential questions you have.  What made me
think and feel this
way?

 
Key language points: You are writing about thoughts and feelings that happened, so use the
past tense. Helpful phrases are ‘I felt…’, ‘I thought…’, ‘I believe…’, ‘I think…’. It can be
useful to use transitional language to connect experiences with feelings and thoughts, for
example ‘next’, ’subsequently’, ‘afterwards’, ‘finally’, ‘leading to’ etc.

Example of Responding

When I came out of the meeting, I remember thinking that I had wasted our time, leading me to
feel really frustrated. I think I felt that way because I was hesitant to say to my supervisor that the
conversation on the literature review was not what I wanted to discuss. The reason I was hesitant
is that my supervisor has so much more experience than me, so if they wanted to spend time on
the literature review that was probably the right thing to do. However, given I believe we wasted
our time I realised afterwards that it was probably not the right thing to do.

Relating:
Here you can relate your experience of the reported situation with your knowledge and skills
from outside of the situation.
What to do What’s included Helpful questions
Provide your understanding of Your connections between past  Have I seen this
 before?
 What was
how the situation relates to experiences, your skills, similar/different then?
your own knowledge and past knowledge, you’re  Do I have skills and
experiences. understanding and the situation. knowledge to deal
with this?

 
Key language points: You are commenting on an experience from the past but in the present
so you should consider writing in the present tense. Helpful phrases are ‘This reminds me
of…’, ‘This is like when…’.  It can be useful to use comparative language as ‘previously’,
‘similarly’, ‘unlike’, etc.

Example of Relating

I realise that similar things have happened before when I am in meetings with people who have more
experience than I and I don’t have a clear plan. This reminds me of my meeting at work, where I had
a concern I wanted to raise with my boss, but we never got around to it. I think the common factor in
these situations is that I feel that people with more expertise than I always make better decisions than
I do.

Reasoning:
Here you can make sense of the situation in terms of significant factors and, if relevant (for
example if requested in assessments), the theoretical literature relevant to your experience.

What to do What’s included Helpful questions

 What is the most important aspect
of this situation and why?
 Is there any theoretical literature
that can help me make sense of the
situation?
Explore and Significant factors within the
 How do different perspectives (for
explain the situation and how they are
example personal, as a student or
situation or important to understanding
professional) affect the way I
experience. what happened.
understand the situation?
 How would someone who is
knowledgeable about these types of
situations respond?

 
Key language points: These are your current thoughts so write in the present tense. Helpful
phrases are ‘I understand that…’, ‘I realise’, ‘For me the most significant aspect...’.  It can be
useful to use analytical language as ‘critically’, ‘imply’, ‘support’ (as in supporting evidence),
etc.

Example of reasoning

The most significant thing about the meeting situation is what happens when I am going in with a
vague plan of what I want. I have realised that I do not get the things I need from the meeting. This is
especially problematic when the person I am meeting with has more experience than me. My
previous experience with my boss would support this idea. I think if I address them like peers and not
superiors, I can be differently prepared. I imagine that if I was an expert at leading meetings I would
have a clear plan, which I would state at the beginning of the meeting so that we both know what we
need to discuss. I think what has been holding me back is being afraid of looking bossy. However, if
I look at it from their perspective and see that I am actually saving them time by only meeting once, I
would actually be coming across as professional rather than bossy.

Reconstructing:
Here you make a conclusion about your future plans based on the previous four sections.
What to do What’s included Helpful questions
 How would I need
to do this
differently in the
future?
Your deeper understanding and  What might work
Reframe or reconstruct summary of the learning. and why?
future practice by drawing  Are there different
conclusions from the four You will also have to include an action options?
previous stages. plan, arguing for why it will work.
 Are my ideas
Use this to develop an That can be based on literature supported by
action plan for what to do included in the previous stage or from theory?
next. the new knowledge gained from the  Can I make
Relating and Reasoning stages. changes to benefit
others?
 What might
happen if…?

 
Key language points: These are your current thoughts about what you want to do in the
future so use the present or future tense. Helpful phrases are ‘I will now…’, ‘I realise’, ‘I have
learned that…’, ‘As a next step, I need to...’.  It can be useful to use words indicating future as
‘will’, ‘may’, ‘could’, etc.
 Example of reconstructing

Based on the previous reflection stages, I have learned that I need to write an agenda before going
into a meeting. I realise by taking 10 minutes before a meeting to prepare what I need from it, I can
save time for both myself and the person I am meeting with. Firstly, in the meeting, I will share the
agenda, so the objectives are clear from the start to enable the outcome I want. Alternatively, I
could email the person beforehand telling them what I need from the meeting so they can prepare.
I think the latter will work at university, but maybe not at my work where there is no email culture.
I think if I do this, my meetings will be shorter, and I can get what I need from them.

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle

One of the most famous cyclical models of reflection leading you
through six stages exploring an experience: description, feelings,
evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan.
Overview
Gibbs' Reflective Cycle was developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 to give structure to learning
from experiences.  It offers a framework for examining experiences, and given its cyclic
nature lends itself particularly well to repeated experiences, allowing you to learn and plan
from things that either went well or didn’t go well. It covers 6 stages:

 Description of the experience

 Feelings and thoughts about the experience
 Evaluation of the experience, both good and bad
 Analysis to make sense of the situation
 Conclusion about what you learned and what you could have done differently
 Action plan for how you would deal with similar situations in the future, or general
changes you might find appropriate.

 
Below is further information on:

 The model – each stage is given a fuller description, guiding questions to ask yourself
and an example of how this might look in a reflection
 Different depths of reflection – an example of reflecting more briefly using this model

 
This is just one model of reflection. Test it out and see how it works for you. If you find that
only a few of the questions are helpful for you, focus on those. However, by thinking about
each stage you are more likely to engage critically with your learning experience.
The model

Gibbs' reflective cycle

This model is a good way to work through an experience. This can be either a stand-alone
experience or a situation you go through frequently, for example meetings with a team you
have to collaborate with. Gibbs originally advocated its use in repeated situations, but the
stages and principles apply equally well for single experiences too. If done with a stand-alone
experience, the action plan may become more general and look at how you can apply your
conclusions in the future.
 
For each of the stages of the model a number of helpful questions are outlined below. You
don’t have to answer all of them, but they can guide you about what sort of things make sense
to include in that stage. You might have other prompts that work better for you.
 

Description
Here you have a chance to describe the situation in detail. The main points to include here
concern what happened. Your feelings and conclusions will come later.
Helpful questions:

 What happened?
 When and where did it happen?
 Who was present?
 What did you and the other people do?
 What was the outcome of the situation?
 Why were you there?
 What did you want to happen?

Example of 'Description'
 Group work assignment

For an assessed written group-work assignment, my group (3 others from my course) and I decided to
divide the different sections between us so that we only had to research one element each. We
expected we could just piece the assignment together in the afternoon the day before the deadline,
meaning that we didn’t have to schedule time to sit and write it together. However, when we sat down
it was clear the sections weren’t written in the same writing style. We therefore had to rewrite most of
the assignment to make it a coherent piece of work.  We had given ourselves enough time before the
deadline to individually write our own sections, however we did not plan a great deal of time to
rewrite if something were to go wrong. Therefore, two members of the group had to drop their plans
that evening so the assignment would be finished in time for the deadline.

Feelings
Here you can explore any feelings or thoughts that you had during the experience and how
they may have impacted the experience.
Helpful questions:

 What were you feeling during the situation?

 What were you feeling before and after the situation?
 What do you think other people were feeling about the situation?
 What do you think other people feel about the situation now?
 What were you thinking during the situation?
 What do you think about the situation now?

Example of 'Feelings'
Group work assignment

Before we came together and realised, we still had a lot of work to do, I was quite happy and thought
we had been smart when we divided the work between us. When we realised, we couldn’t hand in
the assignment like it was, I got quite frustrated. I was certain it was going to work, and therefore I
had little motivation to actually do the rewriting. Given that a couple of people from the group had to
cancel their plans I ended up feeling quite guilty, which actually helped me to work harder in the
evening and get the work done faster. Looking back, I’m feeling satisfied that we decided to put in
the work.

Evaluation
Here you have a chance to evaluate what worked and what didn’t work in the situation. Try to
be as objective and honest as possible. To get the most out of your reflection focus on both the
positive and the negative aspects of the situation, even if it was primarily one or the other.
Helpful questions:

 What was good and bad about the experience?

 What went well?
 What didn’t go so well?
 What did you and other people contribute to the situation (positively or negatively)?

Example of 'Evaluation'
Group work assignment

The things that were good and worked well was the fact that each group member produced good
quality work for the agreed deadline. Moreover, the fact that two people from the group cancelled
plans motivated us to work harder in the evening. That contributed positively to the group’s work
ethic. The things that clearly didn’t work was that we assumed we wrote in the same way, and
therefore the overall time plan of the group failed.

Analysis
The analysis step is where you have a chance to make sense of what happened. Up until now
you have focused on details around what happened in the situation. Now you have a chance to
extract meaning from it. You want to target the different aspects that went well or poorly and
ask yourself why. If you are looking to include academic literature, this is the natural place to
include it.
Helpful questions:

 Why did things go well?

 Why didn’t it go well?
 What sense can I make of the situation?
 What knowledge – my own or others (for example academic literature) can help me
understand the situation?

Example of 'Analysis'
Group work assignment

I think the reason that our initial division of work went well was because each person had a say in
what part of the assignment they wanted to work on, and we divided according to people’s self-
identified strengths. I have experienced working this way before and discovered when I’m working by
myself, I enjoy working in areas that match my strengths. It seems natural to me that this is also the
case in groups.
 I think we thought that this approach would save us time when piecing together the sections in the end,
and therefore we didn’t think it through. In reality, it ended up costing us far more time than expected
and we also had to stress and rush through the rewrite.  I think the fact we hadn’t planned how we
were writing and structuring the sections led us to this situation.
I searched through some literature on group work and found two things that help me understand the
situation. Belbin’s (e.g. 2010) team roles suggests that each person has certain strengths and
weaknesses they bring to a group. While we didn’t think about our team members in the same way
Belbin does, effective teamwork and work delegation seems to come from using people’s different
strengths, which we did.
Another theory that might help explain why we didn’t predict the plan wouldn’t work is ‘Groupthink’
(e.g. Janis, 1991). Groupthink is where people in a group won’t raise different opinions to a dominant
opinion or decision, because they don’t want to seem like an outsider. I think if we had challenged our
assumptions about our plan - by actually being critical, we would probably have foreseen that it
wouldn’t work. Some characteristics of groupthink that were in our group were: ‘collective
rationalisation’ – we kept telling each other that it would work; and probably ‘illusion of
invulnerability’ – we are all good students, so of course we couldn’t do anything wrong.
I think being aware of groupthink in the future will be helpful in group work, when trying to make
decisions.
 

Conclusions
In this section you can make conclusions about what happened. This is where you summarise
your learning and highlight what changes to your actions could improve the outcome in the
future. It should be a natural response to the previous sections.
Helpful questions:

 What did I learn from this situation?

 How could this have been a more positive situation for everyone involved?
 What skills do I need to develop for me to handle a situation like this better?
 What else could I have done?

Example of a 'Conclusion'
Group work assignment

I learned that when a group wants to divide work, we must plan how we want each section to look and
feel – having done this would likely have made it possible to put the sections together and submit
without much or any rewriting. Moreover, I will continue to have people self-identify their strengths
and possibly even suggest using the ‘Belbin team roles’-framework with longer projects. Lastly, I
learned that we sometimes have to challenge the decisions we seem to agree on in the group to ensure
that we are not agreeing just because of groupthink.

 
Action plan
At this step you plan for what you would do differently in a similar or related situation in the
future. It can also be extremely helpful to think about how you will help yourself to act
differently – such that you don’t only plan what you will do differently, but also how you will
make sure it happens. Sometimes just the realisation is enough, but other times reminders
might be helpful.
Helpful questions:

 If I had to do the same thing again, what would I do differently?

 How will I develop the required skills I need?
 How can I make sure that I can act differently next time?

Example of 'Action Plan'

Group work assignment

When I’m working with a group next time, I will talk to them about what strengths they have.
This is easy to do and remember in a first meeting, and also potentially works as an icebreaker if
we don’t know each other well. Next, if we decide to divide work, I will insist that we plan out
what we expect from it beforehand. Potentially I would suggest writing the introduction or first
section together first, so that we have a reference for when we are writing our own parts. I’m
confident this current experience will be enough to remind me to suggest this if anyone says we
should divide up the work in the future. Lastly, I will ask if we can challenge our initial decisions
so that we are confident we are making informed decisions to avoid groupthink. If I have any
concerns, I will tell the group. I think by remembering I want the best result possible will make
me be able to disagree even when it feels uncomfortable.

Different depths of reflection

Depending on the context you are doing the reflection in, you might want use different levels
of details. Here is the same scenario, which was used in the example above, however it is
presented much more briefly.

Short example of Gibbs’ reflective cycle:

Describe:
In a group work assignment, we divided sections according to people’s strengths. When we tried
to piece the assignment together it was written in different styles and therefore, we had to spend
time rewriting it.

 Feelings:
I thought our plan would work and felt good about it. When we had to rewrite it, I felt frustrated.
 Evaluation:
The process of dividing sections went well. However, it didn’t work not having foreseen/planned
to rewrite the sections for coherence and writing styles.

Analysis:
Dividing work according to individual strengths is useful. Belbin’s team roles (2010) would
suggest something similar. I have done it before, and it seems to work well.
The reason piecing work together didn’t work was we had no plan for what it needed to look
like. We were so focused on finishing quickly that no one would raise a concern. The last part
can be explained by ‘groupthink’ (e.g. Jarvis, 1991), where members of a group make a
suboptimal decision because individuals are afraid of challenging the consensus.

Conclusion:
I learned that using people’s strengths is efficient. Moreover, planning how we want the work to
look, before we go off on our own is helpful. Lastly, I will remember the dangers of groupthink,
and what the theory suggests to look out for.

Action plan:
I will use Belbin’s team roles to divide group work in the future. Moreover, I will suggest writing
one section together before we do our own work, so we can mirror that in our own writing.
Finally, I will speak my mind when I have concerns, by remembering it can benefit the outcome.
 
Adapted from
Gibbs G (1988). Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further
Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford.

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 – this is covered elsewhere in this Reflection Toolkit.  However, reflection’s
biggest value comes when you build a reflective habit and mindset and align this with your
own set of values, goals, and objectives.  Doing 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 at least three 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, building the learning and
value each time we go through the reflective cycle.
 Regularly reflecting over a longer timeframe to see patterns and opportunities for
learning that we may have missed.
This page explores these and how you can use reflection to aid you in identifying and
progressing your values, goals and objectives.  Reflecting on individual experiences is
covered elsewhere in ‘Reflecting on experience’.            
Reflecting on experience (within the Reflectors’ Toolkit)
Key points expanded below:

 Repeating reflection over a series of related experiences adds real value. 

Connections can be identified between the learning points from individual
experiences, producing an impact that is greater than the sum of its parts.
 While reflection is often used to look at an individual short-term experience, it can
also be applied to review an extended period such as a week, a month, or a year. 
This can help identify relevant experiences and learning and can ensure that valuable
learning is not lost.
 Setting and reflecting on goals and objectives can help create purposeful progress
and can keep your focus and energy where you want it.  The act of identifying values
and setting goals is a reflective process in itself.
 Example approaches for reflecting on goals, objectives, and values.

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

Term How it is used in this section

Values Your beliefs or ideals about what is important in life

Goals The broad main outcomes that you want to achieve

Objectives The smaller steps you take to achieve a larger goal

Reflective habit The ongoing practice of reflecting regularly

 
The ERA model

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. 

Ongoing process of reflection, building from one cycle to the next

By building an ongoing process of reflection, we create significant additional value.  This can
include:
  Strengthening our 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.
 Allowing ourselves to be more purposeful about how we use our time and energy to
greatest effect for ourselves and for others, in our studies, our careers, our
communities and our personal lives.

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.  We can also reflect over longer timeframes and use this to
see things we may have missed such as patterns or opportunities for learning.  Having some
distance from the experience itself can also help ensure we 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 their  day, the last week, month or year.  There are two approaches
to this that are often used – either individually or in combination:

 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 they 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 in increasing 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 heading 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:  Some people may want to increase their impact in their part-time job or
volunteering role because it is in a field, they are interested in pursuing a career and an area
that is personally important to them.  In their weekly reflective check-in, they identify that
they have made some progress in better supporting those they are working/volunteering with. 
But they may also realise that all the impact has been in a narrow area and will not help them
develop the broader experience and understanding needed to build a career in this field.  As a
result, they may adjust their plans and next week will indicate their interest in opportunities in
other areas, and over the next month will look for chances to support and learn more from
people in other areas.
 

Approaches for reflecting on goals,

objectives and values
Identifying values and setting goals
Values and goals are not in themselves necessarily reflective, but the process of identifying
values and setting goals is. The process requires self-awareness and an understanding of the
opportunities, restrictions and barriers around you. 
Goals should mirror your values and therefore represent things that are personally important
to you and that you want to work towards.  The section on reflecting for self-awareness
includes an example activity that can help identify values and another about setting goals
reflectively.
Reflecting for self-awareness (within Reflection Toolkit)

Periodic review – general and targeted reflections

If you plan to reflect on a regular basis, for example every day/week/month/year think about
how you will make the most of the opportunity.  This is particularly important when reflecting
on your values, goals or objectives; two approaches often used for this, either individually or
in combination, are:

 performing a structured review of how your expectations and aspirations of the last
day/week/month/year compared with reality, and then creating/adjusting plans for
your upcoming day/week/month/year.
 creating a broader set of reflective prompts to help you review your last
day/week/month/year in more general terms to identify learning and then
creating/adjusting plans for your next cycle.

Both approaches are expanded below.  Whatever approach you use, reflect on the balance of
how you use your time and energy – does it reflect your values, goals and objectives? 
Looking ahead, will you naturally have more or less time for certain types of activities? 
Should you adjust your expectations accordingly?

In more detail – structured reviews

Structured reviews often involve setting criteria that you will use 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 we have managed to be successful since our 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.

In more detail – broader set of reflective prompts

Some people use a broader set of reflective prompts to review periods of time and their
values, goals and objectives.  The questions asked vary from person to person, and can be
adjusted over time as you find what works for you.  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.
Some smaller scale questions that reviews periods like days and weeks can include:

 What were 3 things that went well today/this week? How do you know?
 What was a situation today/this week where I could have done better? How?
 What was your biggest challenge today/this week? How did you overcome it?
 What was the predominant feeling you had today/this week? Why?
 What made you happy/sad/frustrated/angry/etc today/this week? Can you find some
way of having more or less of the identified aspects?
Some large-scale questions that people ask 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
 

Reflecting for self-awareness

A collection of reflective activities and questions for developing self-
awareness.
This page covers:

 Self-awareness: learning about yourself to improve

 Some traits are stable, others change frequently
 Challenging your answers to remain reflective
 Links to example activities and approaches for self-awareness

Self-awareness: learning about yourself to

improve
The purpose of reflection is to improve practice and become informed in our decisions.
Generally, we want to become more able and effective in what we are doing. A lot of
reflection is done to make more sense of particular experiences – critical experiences,
disorienting dilemmas – however reflection can also start with the want to develop better
understanding of ourselves.
This doesn’t necessarily have to start with an experience, but rather a reflective question. To
answer this type of question, we will often use experiences as evidence or support.
By learning about ourselves, our motives, and our assumptions, we can develop a toolkit of
knowledge and abilities that we can draw on to help ourselves preform to the best of our
ability.
 
Some traits remain stable, others change
frequently
Aspects of ourselves like strengths, weaknesses, and values often tend to be fairly consistent
over time. That said, they do change naturally and, of course, with awareness we can start
consciously targeting these elements, for example by building reflective habits and goals.
However, sometimes we might also want to be aware of things that vary faster such as our
mood, or how we feel about something particular.
The questions and activities you can access from this page will help with awareness of both
more stable traits such as strengths and weaknesses, and traits that vary more rapidly.  They
include simple check-in questions we can ask ourselves in the moment and get us to think
slightly differently about a problem.
 

Challenge your answers to remain

reflective
One very important aspect of these types of activities and questions is that they lend
themselves well to reflection, but don’t necessarily require a reflective approach. Therefore, to
remain reflective it is important that you challenge your initial instincts and look for evidence
– ask yourself ‘How do I know?’ and ‘Why?’ regularly.
 

Example activities and approaches for

self-awareness
There are many ways to build self-awareness.  The activities and questions available below
are not exhaustive, but give you a place to start when trying to increase your self-awareness.

Strengths and weaknesses

Increasing your self-awareness of your strengths and weaknesses.

Values
Increasing your self-awareness of your values.

Goal setting
Using a reflective approach to set effective goals.

Writing letters to your future and past selves

Increasing your self-awareness through writing letters to your future and past selves.

Items for self-awareness

Using items to increase your self-awareness

Strengths and weaknesses

Increasing your self-awareness of your strengths and weaknesses.
Identifying your strengths and weaknesses can be extremely valuable. Not only will it allow
you to approach tasks and challenges with a better understanding of how to succeed and what
pitfalls to look out for, but it also allows you to effectively communicate what you can
contribute, which is essential for things like job interviews.
 

How to identify strengths and weaknesses

For all approaches it can be helpful to set aside a period of undisturbed time where you are
fully focused on the task and really probe, for example 20-30 minutes. Three different
approaches are described below – see what you find helpful, add your own, or mix and match
them together!

Asking yourself targeted questions

Direct questioning process Indirect questioning process

 What is one of my strengths/weaknesses? Here are just a few questions to give

 How do I know? you an idea – you can likely find many
 What does it look like in practice? (For example, more that are helpful.
if a strength is being organised/conscientious,  
maybe you make lists, keep your desk clean, are
always on time, or never miss a deadline.)  What have others complimented
 What other strengths/weaknesses may contribute me about? What does that
to those behaviours? (For example, the behaviour suggest are some of my
‘never missing a deadline’ could come both from strengths?
being organised and being dedicated.)  What have others had to help
 Direct questioning process Indirect questioning process

  me with on multiple occasions?

Does that tell me anything
Repeat this process for as many strengths and weaknesses
about any weaknesses I may
as you can think of. It might be helpful to find a list
have?
online of common strengths and weaknesses to give you
 What projects/tasks give me, or
inspiration.
drain my, energy? Does the
type of activity help inform me
about my strengths or
weaknesses?

Analysing experiences
This approach works for finding both strengths and weaknesses, the only difference is the
type of experience you look at. First, identify an experience that turned out/went really well
(for strengths) or poorly (for weaknesses). This could be supporting a friend, or a teamwork
experience that didn’t go as you hoped.

 Ask yourself what skills/strengths made you capable of succeeding or what

weaknesses may have contributed to an unsuccessful experience.
 Ask yourself what else could have contributed, until you cannot find anymore.
 Repeat for as many experiences as you like.

In reality this method can be used to identify many implicit aspects of ourselves – the only
difference is asking ourselves ‘What [value/assumption/etc] may have contributed to the
outcome of the situation or our actions?’

Asking others
Once you have an idea of your own strengths and weaknesses, or to get you started if you find
it challenging, you can ask a critical friend (see ‘Reflection with others’) to suggest what they
think your strengths and weaknesses are. Remember to reflect on what they say to see if you
agree – it is just their opinion and experience, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are right.  If
you don’t agree, it is useful to think about why they might experience you in that way.
Reflecting with others (within Reflectors’ Toolkit)
 

Back to ‘Reflecting for self-awareness’

This article was published on 18 Mar, 2019
Values
Increasing your self-awareness of your values.
Your values are the things that are important to you. They often take on short labels such as:
family, friendships, education, personal or professional development.
There are many reasons why knowing your values can be important. Firstly, by explicitly
having stated your values you can assess whether you are spending time and making decisions
in accordance with what you find important.
The decisions your values inform will vary in size and complexity.  For example, what to do
with free time, whether you should prioritise your family over your friends or vice versa, or
even whether to work for a company as their values may or may not align with yours.
Therefore, it can also be very helpful to rank your most important values so that you have a
general idea of what to do if you are faced a dilemma of choosing between two things that are
important to you. The context will always be important, but your values can provide you
guidance and a starting point.
One important thing to remember is that values will change naturally over time, and therefore
even if we decided on aspects of our lives according to our values five years ago, it might not
be the right thing for us now. Therefore, it is important to actively reflect and challenge our
values and habits.
It can be useful to track how you spend your time and see if it matches your values, for
example if friends are important for you, do you show that in your actions?

How to identify personal values

There are many different approaches you can use to identify your personal values. Whichever
you choose it can be helpful to set aside a period of undisturbed time when you are fully
focused on the task. Two example approaches are provided below.

Ask yourself questions

One of the easiest ways to identify values is to ask yourself questions like:

 What is important to me?

 What would a perfect day look like? What values are represented in this choice?
 What do I spend my free time on?
 What do I enjoy doing?
 What would I do if there were no limitations?

It can then be helpful to review your answers, consider what values these may represent, and
capture all the values on a list.
Once you have a list it can be beneficial to rank your top 5 or top 10 and save it for reference.
If you don’t find it easy to rank your values, you can start by trying to identify those at the top
of your list by asking yourself questions like ‘If I could only have one of these two things in
my life, which would I choose?’

Use a word list and narrow it down.

This particular approach is adapted from Taproot’s core value identification activity, with the
goal of finding your five core values.
Step 1: From the following list choose and write down values that resonate and are important
to you. There is no need to overthink it but try to be selective so you don’t end up with all of
the values on the list. You will likely find that most of the values have some importance to
you, so make sure you ask yourself ‘Why this one?’ to choose only essential values. If you
have a value that is important to you but does not appear on the list, write that one down too.

Abundance Decisiveness Joy

Acceptance Dedication Kindness
Accountability Dependability Knowledge
Achievement Diversity Leadership
Adventure Empathy Learning
Advocacy Encouragement Life-long learning
Ambition Engagement Love
Appreciation Enthusiasm Loyalty
Attractiveness Ethics Making a difference
Autonomy Excellence Mindfulness
Balance Expressiveness Motivation
Being the best Fairness Optimism
Benevolence Family Open-mindedness
Boldness Friendships Originality
Brilliance Flexibility Passion
Calmness Freedom Performance
Caring Fun Personal development
Challenge Generosity Proactive
Charity Grace Professionalism
Cheerfulness Growth Quality
Cleverness Flexibility Recognition
Community Happiness Risk taking
 Communication Health Safety
Commitment Honesty Security
Compassion Humility Service
Cooperation Humour Spirituality
Collaboration Inclusiveness Stability
Consistency Independence Peace
Contribution Individuality Perfection
Creativity Innovation Playfulness
Credibility Inspiration Popularity
Curiosity Intelligence Power
Daring Intuition Preparedness
Step 2: Group the values into at most five categories/groupings in a way that make sense to
you. For example, if you selected the values flexibility and open-mindedness, these might be
grouped together as they both have something to do with change. However, it is only
important that the groupings make sense for you.
Step 3: Now that you have five groupings, choose one value from each group that functions
as an overall label for the group (or make up a label if one value does not stand out). For
instance, if you have grouped ‘balance’, ‘health’, ‘personal development’, ‘wellbeing’ and
‘spirituality’ – the label may end up being ‘wellbeing’.
Now you have five core values (or value groups) with a series of important values embedded
within these.
Step 4: You can stop the exercise there, or you can choose to add a verb to each of the core
values to make it actionable. For instance, to make ‘wellbeing’ from the above example an
actionable value statement, you might make it the actionable value ‘Promote wellbeing’.
Step 5: Now challenge yourself to order the core values from most important to least
important. Write the prioritised list.
Now you have a list that you can return to for reference when making future decisions.
One challenge with this approach is that it might not support you to make decisions within a
value grouping. For example, if you had to choose between supporting a friend or a family
member, and both friendships and family are in the same grouping this method might not help
you.
Therefore, it can be helpful to make a prioritised list directly from the set of values without
grouping them.  The questions in the example ‘Ask yourself questions’ above may be useful
to judge the relative importance of the values.
Original exercise: Live Your Core Values (external)
 

Back to ‘Reflecting for self-awareness’  

Goal setting
Using a reflective approach to set effective goals.
Working toward something tangible can be important for your personal and professional
development. While goals are not reflective in their own right, the process of choosing them,
developing plans, and identifying challenges and how to overcome them, certainly can be
very reflective.
There are many different goal-setting models, and it is very important that you find one that
works for you.  However, there are some common themes across goal-setting models that you
should consider:

 Importance – ensuring your goal is actually important to you

 Specificity – making your goal specific
 Realistic – making your goal realistic
 Planning – building a robust plan to achieve your goal
 Obstacles – identifying and planning for these
 Deadline/Timing – making it realistic and appropriate

Each of these is summarised below along with prompts to ensure you are reflective in the
process. 
 

Importance
Many models highlight the importance of finding a goal that is important for you. There
might be many things that are important to you, so how do you realise that your goal is
essential to you?
You might ask yourself reflective questions such as:

 Why this goal and not something else?

 Is the goal rooted in my values?
 What would it mean for me to complete this goal? Is the result of this goal important?
 How much time am I willing to give to obtaining this goal? Does is it feel an
appropriate amount of time for how important I think the goal is?

Specificity
Goals need to be sufficiently specific so that you know when you have achieved it.
For instance, a common goal might be to ‘get better at X’, but how do you know you have
gotten better? Is it when someone else recognise it? Is it a feeling? Is it learning one fact
about the thing you want to improve on?
To ensure specificity, the main questions you need to ask yourself are something like:

 What is my finish line?

 How will I know I have accomplished my goal?
 How will it feel? Will I be able to recognise the feeling?
 How does it usually look and feel when I accomplish something? How could you
define your goal so that you will feel this way on achieving it?
 Am I specific about all aspects or only a few of them? For instance, I might be specific
about what it will look like, but am I specific about when it should be done?

Checking that your goal is realistic

It can be important to have big dreams, but being realistic is essential for being successful –
so have you been realistic? You can ask yourself questions like:

 Is it possible to accomplish my goal in the time I have available?

 Based on my previous experiences, does it seem likely I will be successful?
 Do I have a tendency to be optimistic about how easy some things are?  Do I
underestimate the time it will take to complete tasks or projects? If that’s the case,
does knowing that inform me about how realistic the goal is?

Ensuring that you have a robust plan

As important as it is to know where you want to finish, it is equally important to know how to
get there with a robust plan. To ensure you have tested your plan, ask yourself questions like:

 When planning, have I looked at my situation from enough perspectives?

 Do I have past experiences that can help inform my current planning?
 How will I deal with unforeseen challenges?
 Have I made the best attempt I can to foresee potential challenges and find ways to
offset them? If not, what challenges do I need to plan for?
 If I had to find one weakness in my plan, what would it be? How can I fix that?

Identifying and figuring out how to deal

with obstacles
On the way to accomplishing your goal, you will likely experience obstacles – both internal
and external. To increase your chance of success, it is important to identify known or potential
obstacles and plan how to deal with them. Ask yourself questions like:

 Which of my weaknesses will become a challenge to my fulfilling this goal?

  If everything goes wrong what will be the thing that will make it least likely for me to
get back on track? How can I mitigate that risk?
 What do my experiences tell me about how I myself may make achieving this goal
difficult or challenging? For instance, it might be a tendency to postpone tasks or to
lose focus.
 Which of my strengths will be useful in overcoming these challenges?
 Do I need to rework my plan to account for some of these challenges?
 What support do I have?

Making sure that the deadline for your

goal is realistic and appropriate
When you reflected on the aspects that make up the goal and your plans for getting there,
make sure that you give yourself enough time to achieve the goal. Equally, avoid giving
yourself too much time as this can lead to procrastination and lack of focus. Ask yourself:

 Based on my plan, my obstacles, and my experiences, what is a realistic timescale for

me to achieve my goal?
 If you already have set a deadline, ask yourself if you would be able to accomplish
your goal in less time. Would you be able to do it if you had one day less? One week
less? One month less?

By being reflective when setting your goals, you will help yourself to optimise your chance of
being successful.

Writing letters to your future and

past selves
Increasing your self-awareness through writing letters to your future and
past selves.
Letter-writing activities challenge you to think about who you are, who you were and who
you want to be. Writing letters can be both extremely emotionally freeing and help you think
critically about how you should live now. There are many types of letters to write to yourself;
here we highlight two:

 Writing to you future self

 Writing to your past self

 
Writing a letter to your future self
This activity is about imagining where you are and who you are going to be sometime in the
future. Five years is often used as the point in the future to envision as it is both far enough
away that your life could be completely different, but close enough for it to seem tangible.
This letter will focus on who you want to be and what you have accomplished between now
and then.

Steps
 Identify a date in the future (for example five years)
 Write the letter to yourself to be received on that day in the future
 Write it as an actual letter
 In your letter address questions like the following:
o Who do I want to be?
o Where do I want to be?
o What do I want to have done?
o Who do I want to be with?
o What of my hobbies have I developed?
o What friends do I still see and prioritise?
o What kind of new friends have I made? Where sorts of places did, I meet
them?
 Once drafted, read the letter again. Does it seem right? Do you want to make any
changes?
 When you are happy with your letter, continue to the next step immediately or put it
away for a couple of days and then return to it (recommended).
 Now reflect on your life as it is currently. Ask yourself questions like the following:
o Am I on track to be there in 5 years? (or whatever period you chose)
o What changes will I have to make right now to make this a reality?
o What are the first steps I can make today?
o How will my strengths and weaknesses help or hinder me getting there?

There is great value in both writing the letter and doing the assessment of your current
direction. It can be valuable to do the reflection of your current state a while after originally
writing the letter. Start by rereading it.
Remember that where we see ourselves in the future is likely to change, and therefore doing
this activity occasionally can help you assure that you are heading the right direction.
 

Write a letter to your past self

This activity is about looking back at the person you were with the information you have now.
As with writing letters to your future self, five years is often used as the point in the past to
look back to – it provides sufficient distance for change to have happened but close enough to
be tangible and within your memory.
This letter will focus on what you advice you would give your past self and tell them about
what has happened between then and now.

Steps
 Identify a date in the past – you might choose one immediately before a transition (for
example, before going to university or a big life change)
 Write the letter to yourself to be received on that day
 Write it as an actual letter
 In the letter address questions like the following:
o What are some of the main things you have learned since then?
o What should your past self-look out for?
o What is the best advice you could give your past self?
o What would you tell yourself to get through some of the challenges that you
faced?
o What would you tell yourself about your successes and the way you dealt with
them?
o What type of people have helped you along the way?
o What type of people have made life harder?
o Who do you wish you had spent more time with?
 Once done read the letter again. Does it seem right? Do you want to make any
changes?
 When you are happy with your letter, continue to the next step immediately or put it
away for a couple of days and then return to it (recommended).
 Now reflect on your life as it is currently. Ask yourself questions like the following:
o Of the advice you have given to your past self, how much of it are you
following today? How could you follow the advice better?
o Are there some people or types of people you wish you had spent more or less
time with? How can you change that now?
o What else can you take away and apply better to your life and your immediate
future?

 
There is great value in both writing the letter and doing the assessment of your current
direction. It can be valuable to do the reflection of you current state a while after originally
writing the letter. Start by rereading it.
Remember that hindsight is wonderful, but it is not realistic or fair to expect that in the past
we could have anticipated all that would come. The aim of this letter is to reflect on and learn
from our experiences, and to use this reflection to inform our current and future thinking and
behaviour.

Items for self-awareness

Using items to increase your self-awareness
This activity uses a basic form of questioning and may seem slightly strange when first
engaging with it. However, it can be extremely beneficial to get a new and different
perspective and force you to think differently.
The main principle of using items for self-awareness is choosing an item to represent you or
something about you. The ‘items’ you use can include physical objects, characters, films,
songs and other things – the main point is that the ‘thing’ needs some defining characteristics.
You can ask yourself many questions for this activity and each can help you learn something
different about yourself.
                                                  

Which items to use

There are two main ways of using items and other resources for reflection.

Choosing from any item in a category Choosing from a selection of items

Choosing to be relatively free in the range of items This can be fun as it will challenge reflectors to
from which a reflector can choose means that the be creative with their choices, however some
reflector can find something that works them, but people might find it hard.
it may seem overwhelming and hard to choose.
The easiest way of making the range of choices
This can be questions like: smaller is having a set of items in front of the
reflector that they must choose from. Another
 Pick any song… way is to ask the reflector to bring the item with
 Pick any item… them.
Questions may look like
One characteristic of this type of question is often
that you don’t actually need the physical item but
 From this set of…
can talk about or describe it.
Items you have in your room

Type/source of item to choose from Area you want to explore

Items from your room the way I learn

Songs from your childhood the way I solve problems

Blockbuster films the way I feel

Set of images the way I handle tough times

Colours the progress of a particular project

 Tools how I celebrate successes

Things you find in an antique shop the type of friend I am

Cars the way I work in a team

Super heroes how I deal with change

Starting questions
Questions tend to follow a pattern like ‘What [prescribed type or source of
item] represents [area you want to explore]?
Below are some examples that can be mixed and matched.
 

Making sure your answers are reflective

The reflective process comes from thinking about the qualities of the item and your own
qualities – you should be able to say why you chose that particular item.
When doing this activity, the goal is to be as reflective as possible.

Example Choose a type of car to show how you solve problems

Reflective A racing car, because when I get on track, I’m very quick and dedicated and I will
answer go as fast as I can until it’s solved. However, just like a racing car, I need a team
around me to make sure that everything else (like the engine or getting food) is
functioning such that I can just focus on the problem.

Reflective A four-wheel drive jeep, I might not be very fast when solving problems, but I can
answer solve a range of challenges – just like being able to go into all types of terrain.
Solutions may not look flashy, but they are dependable.

Non- A Ferrari, because I like them and would want one – they are fast.
reflective
answer