Reflections on life - lessons or guidance?

I am sure you have heard people say this a lot, take a step back and reflect on your life or yourself. Yeah? Everybody does the reflecting on life thing, some a little more than the others (probably the over thinkers; hands up if you are one). Reflections of life or self-reflection is nothing but consciously understanding your life, the way it's going and your surroundings.

We have often heard people say, don’t dwell or look into the past, of course that is correct, the only timeframe you need to be present is in the present. But that being said, you do sometimes have to stop, take a step back and reflect, connect the dots from the past or the decisions you have made, as a way of moving forward, which harbours your growth. Generally we get so lost in our daily lives that we forget to stop for a moment. Therefore, this is one of the best ways to shift your mindset, understand how to reach to situations and basically increase overall positivity.

A lot of times on daily basis we feel a little battered and to be honest, lost. It is in these times it is important to observe oneself, reflect, re-learn and figure things out. All it takes is a conscious effort on our end to trust our intuitions, listen to our inner voice, despite of the world and the situations telling you otherwise.

I have many such days of reflection on a very often basis frankly. I don’t really know the outcome or result of these, but at least they tend to help you see things from a bigger perspective and understand the world around you a little more, so that you can react to it in that manner from then on. Whether you do it annually, monthly, weekly or even daily, no matter what, I think it is important that you do it. It definitely helps and gives us a right sense of direction in the way we want our life to be. Moreover, it is just not about showing you how you are supposed to work on your life, the direction or purpose but also a way to analyse how you grew and the experiences that gave you happiness, it is important to stand back and be grateful for a lot of things that helped us into becoming what we are today. According to me, it is also about self-awareness and acceptance too in a lot of ways, knowing yourself and how you can be better. Your reflections could very well be the reason which sets you apart from the others in this journey of life.

Sometimes all it takes is a simple look in the mirror and see yourself for who you are and how you have changed (or how the world has changed you in fact) and ponder whether that’s what you wanted or not. It’ll help you realise a lot of stuff about life and about yourself to be honest. If you do not recognise the person staring back at you, then it is probably time to make some conscious changes. Try it.  
You can also write down to practice some self reflections, as it can be one of the best ways to put down your thoughts and identify patterns which can help you put things together. You never know what might come out of this, you may discover something which you never understood before, make sense of things, challenge yourself going forward and also a way of looking at how far you have come.

Eventually it all comes down to mindfulness and being conscious of the happenings in your life and the decisions that you make and how they affect you. If things are not going the way you have anticipated them to; change the route, change your routine, whatever helps you make your life better. It would be beneficial if you could make it more of a daily thing or at least weekly if possible because I feel self reflection is the best teacher to help you improve yourself.

P.S. This is more of a random post and was something that just came out of my thoughts. I would like to hear your point on view on the topic and how you guys reflect on life, could be in general or on specific situations. Comment below.