Self Reflection Using My Bullet Journal

There are many kinds of self reflection meanings and many self-reflection web pages on the web. There’s ones on work, life, relationships … … there’s a lot of ways you can reflect. This post will show that self-reflections don’t always go the way you hope.

Below: Annotated Bibliography On the Meaning of Self Reflection

The definition of self-reflection is to look in the metaphorical mirror at yourself and find the truth about the same. In order to do this I have to stop myself and sit down and take a step back.

What Kind of Self Reflection to Do?

I don’t want to reflect on my work life now, since I’m a teacher I’ll do that in May when the school year ends. And honestly, I reflected an awful lot about content creation in the last 3 months. I think I need to wait until next fall to reflect on that.

That still leaves the personal reflection. The overall massive question. How is my life going in general.

One thing I could do is get out my bullet journal and try to see how many of the goals I wrote in 2023 … both annual and monthly … I’ve met.

My annual goals for 2023 include:

Starting grad school. Check
Publishing articles. Check. I wrote two for an education blog.
Then I have “lose 7 lbs.” I lost 3 lbs. this year. At least I didn’t gain. Partially met.
I wanted to finish a personal recovery inventory. Which I have started but not finished. Partially met.
And then there was a legal matter regarding the divorce which I *did* accomplish.

And now the monthly goals

Winter

January
Losing weight. We’ve discussed that.
February.
No goals. Apparently I got distracted.

Spring

March. None.
April
Post more on my education blog. Yeah that didn’t happen.
Have a better attitude at work. I did improve in that area.
Don’t start a new project until the previous one is done. Possibly I made some gains in that area but it’s still a big issue.
Stay busy but don’t exhaust myself? Ditto.
There’s nothing in May

Summer

June:

Stay grounded and do good work. It’s well meaning but it’s not what you’d call a SMART goal., I cannot give myself credit for writing it let alone achieving it.
Then we have “Explore the unknown. Conquer fear.” Uh-oh. I don’t think I get credit for those either.
But this one I may have done. “Have the kind of character you expect in others.”

July. Nothing on the goals page for July. It was midsummer, I was out to pasture.
August. Still nothing.

Fall

By the first of September, my bullet journal goals page is taken up by a list of groceries that Andrew wants in the house all the time, including such things as ham, cheese, ice cream, and cottage cheese, plus granola bars.
October is blank except for a drawing of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which I was making into a worksheet for this blog, but which remains incomplete.
November is blank.
And then I have goals for December. It says “Christmas Gifts” and lists nine people who need them. I bought them the gifts and sent them where necessary. Done.

Dear Reader, I’m embarrassed looking at my bullet journal now.

Apparently I have missed a lot of goals this year

And not just missed goals, some months I missed even *writing* goals or even *thinking* about them. I’m sorry to say these are some of the wishy washiest goals I’ve ever read, and because I just read a bunch of blog posts about end of your reflection, I’ve read a lot of goals.

I’m beginning to feel a little like Bridget Jones here.

But wait, am I really an absolute… Non-Goal Reacher?

It seems to me that I did make some goals. I reached three of my annual goals and the other two I half reached. For a score four out of five on annual goals.

Monthly goals were not so successful. I tallied them up. I arguably met or somewhat met six goals, while five remained conclusively non met.

In 2023, I Was a Thoroughgoing Non Goal Reacher

One can only say that if I’m going to do such a shabby job on goal meeting, I should probably start with more of them to begin with so I can get more done, right?

I mean what happened? There are no goals for six of the 12 months?

My first goal for my new bullet journal will be “write at least one goal for every month.”

In self-defense I would like to point out that there are some goals I met which were never written down. I did a good job of going to yoga three days a week, and doing my morning exercises. Healthy eating, I was all over that one.

I am also halfway through making phonics baskets for all the teachers in primary grades at my building and halfway through rewriting my phonics cards for Teachers pay Teachers.

Uh-oh.

First annual goal. Finish what you start.

As for my self-reflection meaning? I’ve just learned something about myself for sure. By looking closely, checking things that are written over time, so I can see the things that I try not to notice…

Although I had noticed that I often set goals I don’t meet, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so completely exposed as a non-goal-reacher as I do today.

But at least I did this self reflection using my bullet journal and decided that I need to follow through and be more focused in 2024.

A bullet journal is not the only tool you could use for this type of reflection. You could look at your date book, your phone log, your email account, your Facebook account… There are many ways you could reflect on 2023.

You could do it the old fashioned way, sitting in a quiet room and writing your thoughts and feelings.

I hope this blog post has been helpful as you prepare to write your own 2023 self-reflection. Maybe it will help to realize that not all self-reflections come out with glowing colors.

Nevertheless, I think this certainly has been helpful to me. My one word for 2024?

Goals.

Annotated Bibliography On the Meaning of Self Reflection

Berkeley Wellbeing: What is the meaning of self reflection, anyway? We look at and into ourselves.

HBR.org. What Self-Awareness is and how to cultivate it. This involves your leadership style, your awareness of what you are inside and your awareness of how others perceive you. And there’s a self-improvement quiz included.

Harvard Business Review: Uses general prompts, two sets of questions, and a peer review partner to get to the bottom of how this year went.

Nithiness.com: 5 journaling prompts for reflection. Very much the reflection of a content creator, but noteworthy for his admission that he didn’t want to brag, but it had been a good year. Kindof cancels out the negative vibes of my own reflection. You win some years, you lose some.

Betterup.com: “Being confronted with who we are is often uncomfortable. It means holding ourselves accountable, admitting to weaknesses, and trying to further our personal development.” Oh man, did I ever just experience that. Comes with the Big 5 Personality Test. Which I took … it appears I’m rather outgoing … but not particularly even keeled. Am I surprised?

That is what comes from being honest on online quizzes. On to 2024.