Getting started with Reflective Practice
Reflective practice is the habit of looking back at an activity, event or experience so that you can learn from it. That learning can then shape, and enhance, your future behaviour and outcomes.
This is an excellent means of ensuring you progress your professional development and raise your performance and satisfaction. Coaches often introduce some form of reflective practice into coaching sessions because it is so effective.
There are various approaches to this. Once the habit has been established you may modify the questions to more closely suit your particular needs. A good straightforward framework to start with is Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle. This provides a cyclical framework which is useful for reflecting on repeated experiences or situations. It has 6 steps:
Description of the experience
For example you might ask yourself – what happened? Who was present? What did we each do?
Feelings and thoughts about the experience
You might ask what you feeling before, during and after the experience?
Evaluation of the experience, both good and bad
What was good or bad about the experience? What went well? What went less well?
Analysis to make sense of the situation
Why did things go well? Why didn’t things go well? What sense can I make of the situation?
Conclusion about what you learned and what you could have done differently
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?
You can then build these reflections into an action plan. This enables you to take concrete steps to make change happen. Your Action plan defines how you would deal with similar situations in the future, or the general changes you might find appropriate:
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?
Using these questions in a weekly or monthly reflective session can be highly valuable. You can also use this approach to look back at a wider period of time, for example in evaluating how you think a project has been carried out or how your professional year has been. These steps can help you to strike a balanced view (i.e. not too negative or unduly positive) for you to act on.
This is a great time in the new year to make reflective practice a good habit. Let us know how you get on or ask any questions in the comments below. Good luck!