23.04.09: Weekly I Learned <Fun English>

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Self-Reflection

Vocab

Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another

Thrive: to grow or develop well, to be successful or make steady progress

Indispensable: absolutely necessary, essential

Competency: the ability to do something successfully or efficiently

Mediocre: of only average quality, not very good

Contemplate: to think about something deeply, to consider or reflect on something

Consequences: the result or effect of an action or decision

Transpired: to occur, happen, or take place

Scrutiny: critical observation or examination

Fiascoes: a complete failure, especially a ludicrous or humiliating one

Gaffes: an unintentional act or remark causing embarrassment to its originator

Self-effacing: not claiming attention for oneself, retiring and modest

Blow your stack: to become very angry with someone and shout at them

On an even keel: regular and well-balanced and not likely to change suddenly

Cognitive: connected with thinking or conscious mental processes

Go so far as to do something: to be willing to do something that is extreme

Transpire: turn out, become known

Lpse: a temporary failure

In the heat of the moment: in the extremely emotional situation

Galvanize: to cause someone to suddenly take action, especially by shocking or exciting them in some way

Thwart: frustrate (verb)

Key Phrases

Empathy, communication, adaptability, emotional intelligence, and compassion. These are all skills you need to thrive in the workplace and become a great leader. Soft skills, after all, are what make us human.

the habit of reflection can separate extraordinary professionals from mediocre ones.

The practice itself is all about learning, looking back on the day (without bias or regret) to contemplate your behavior and its consequences.

To get its full benefits, you must make reflection a habit.

What Our Research Says

Surprise

most leaders were moved by moments that greatly derailed their expectations.

One participant expressed “shock” that a well-respected, even-keeled colleague blew their stack about a minor issue. Another was surprised when a reasonable request was rejected. And yet another claimed “shock” when the market share of a proven service dropped.

 

Failure

Mistakes provide raw evidence of what we should not do in the future.

 

Frustration

Frustration occurs when our thoughtful analysis is criticized. We’re frustrated when our goals are thwarted and we’re not able to get what we want, but pushing through that frustration and finding other ways to cope and move forward results in our growth.

 

 

Building a Weekly Practice

 

your mind needs reflection to reenergize and grow stronger.

1. Keep a journal Whenever you are surprised, frustrated, or fail, pause and note the feeling. As soon as you are able, jot down what happened in enough detail to recall the instance in as much accuracy as possible. Try to identify the why behind the emotion.
   
   
2. Set an hour aside each week to review your notes. you can’t get better until you know what to get better at.
   
   
3. Don’t just re-read your journal entry. Now the question becomes: How can I make sure this doesn’t happen again? In the case of failure, you may find there is a mistake you can learn from. In the case of surprise, you may discover that you need to recalibrate unrealistic expectations. In the case of frustration, you may figure out that you need to get better at adapting to the unexpected.

 

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Reflection is executive functioning. True courageous reflection galvanizes your willpower. It promotes continuous self-awareness, empowers you, ensures you are valued, and gives you the self-awareness you need to quicken achieving your potential.

 

Questions

1. What kinds of situations make you feel frustrated? And do you think any of your values are connected to that feeling?
   
   When I think that I am not helpful or not good enough for the groups to which I belong, I often feel frustrated. This happens mostly at work. I do not usually take the time to do self-reflection, but when I feel that way, I try not to stay down for long and figure out ways that could help me improve. It can take time to see my progress, but if I don't give up, it always works.
   
   
2. one English expression(word or phrase) you find useful in the article
   True courageous reflection galvanizes your willpower.
   
   
3. one question you'd like to ask to others about self-reflection
   I am wondering if others take some time off for self-reflection and how they do it. If there is someone who regularly writes a journal, what do they write in it? I tried a while back, but I gave up since I found I was just writing down my daily routine every day.

Managing emotions

 

1. How do you manage your emotions?

I am not an emotionally sensitive person normally, but when I feel angry, sometimes hard to control my anger. Then I try to figure out where the anger came from. Most of the time, it was triggered by such a small thing.

 

2. When you feel frustrated at work, how do you usually deal with it? Do you have your

own way of self-reflection to cope with the situation?

Normally frustration comes from dealing with people, specially co-workers. I am a social person, so there were not many troubles, but still there were people that hard to communicate with. When I am in a situation that I feel frustrated from someone, first I avoid to talk when I feel annoyed or anything, so it does not affect the people that I work with, and after calming down myself, I look back the situation with cold headed. If I need to talk, I go and talk with the person.

 

Self-reflection rituals

 

3. I am wondering if others take some time off for self-reflection and how they go about it. For those who keep a journal, what kind of things do they write in it? I tried doing it myself a while back, but I eventually gave up because I found myself just writing down my daily routine every day.

 

4. During self-reflection, you may come across memories that you'd rather not revisit. How do you manage the emotional response that comes with them?

I just literally just let it be. I may feel embarrassed to face myself the moment that I reflect on. However, once I get through the moment, I would definitely get a clear objective view and won’t make the scene happened again.

 

Self-reflection experiences

 

5. What did your most recent instance of self-reflection reveal to you? (This could include realizations that occurred spontaneously, even if they were not consciously intended as a moment of self-reflection.)

When I blog, I refer many articles regards to my study, and I found many people consider deeply enough before starting their projects. When I looked myself back, I may not the one who really think a lot before beginning my work.

 

6. Could you share a time when you reflected on a situation, reconsidered your thoughts, and ultimately resolved a conflict in the past?

Most of the time, I experienced it in relationships with people mostly it was loved ones. I got conflicts with others, look back, and reconsider, say sorry to your people around or say we need to talk, and let it go.

 

General questions

 

7. Of the three sentiments, surprise, failure, and frustration, which one taught you the most valuable lesson most recently? In what ways do you believe each of these emotions can contribute to personal growth?

Maybe the emotional flow of a situation would be that you get surprised by an unexpected result from your activity in negative wise, then experience a failure, after all you get frustrated. While you get through this flow, if you try to find why the thing happened and problems and resolve the conflict in the end, that could be a nourishment not only for your next step, also for your stronger heart.

 

8. Which part of the article do you find the most impressive? Why?

True courageous reflection galvanizes your willpower. —> I agree with this phrase. Revisiting a hard time of yours could hurt your emotion again, you need courage. However, if you overcome the fear and get through the process, it will help you to get you stronger will based on the past experience.

 

9. Which tactics from the article would you personally put into practice, and why?

Try to think of yourself as neutral observer. It would be really hard coz I already have a standard on my own. It may interrupt during I think again about the situation. but it will help.