Reflective diary

Most diaries document events. A reflective diary goes further – you write about what happened, then you think about what you learned from it, how you felt, what you'd do differently. It's less "had coffee with Sarah" and more "had coffee with Sarah, realized I've been avoiding her because she reminds me of something I don't want to deal with."

Why bother?

We experience things constantly but rarely stop to process them. A reflective diary forces you to. And the act of writing it down – actually articulating what you feel – often reveals things you didn't consciously notice. Patterns emerge. You see your own blind spots.

How to do it

After something notable happens – a conversation, a decision, a moment that stuck with you – write about it. Then ask yourself a few questions:

• What actually happened?
• How did I feel about it?
• Why did I react that way?
• What would I do differently next time?

You don't need to answer all of them every time. Sometimes one question is enough to crack something open.

This takes practice

Reflection sounds easy but it's not. It's a skill. At first your entries might be shallow – "I got annoyed in the meeting." With practice you get to "I got annoyed in the meeting because I felt dismissed, and I feel dismissed a lot, and I should think about why that pattern keeps showing up."

Start with once a week if daily feels like too much. The point isn't frequency – it's actually stopping to think instead of just moving on to the next thing.