A Fantastically Rational Dose of Self-Reflection

Have you ever had one of those moments where you look back on something that just happened and wondered how you could’ve handled it better? I’m sure we all have. Sometimes it’s that knee-jerk reaction to some sudden event and you didn’t have time to think so you just reacted… then afterwards, with some time to think, you realize that you should’ve said this and things would’ve turned out so much better. In fact, I’m pretty sure that palming yourself in the forehead when you realize how you could’ve played your cards a bit better than you did is really just life.

As we head into our fieldwork placements for the next three months, we have been reminded that a key tool for learning from these placements is to always reflect on our experience and what we might learn from it. Self-reflection, we are told over and over again, is the key to learning how to improve your practice in social work. So while we as humans certainly regret not saying this or not doing that or wondering if what we did do really was for the best, the question becomes: what can we take away from it? How do we make that regret into a learning experience?

The obvious answer seems pretty intuitive and rational: keep it in mind the next time something similar happens. But that’s not really all there is to it. Thing is, self-reflection isn’t just about what YOU did or what YOU can do the next time something similar comes up. Regardless of the incident, whether it was someone being rude to you on the train or how you facilitated a group or what you said to a client, there’s far more to learn from the experience than just “what to do better next time.”

Self-reflection is involving. Let’s take an easy example: I was trying to get off the train and I was standing behind a lady who was standing behind a dude. The dude in front wasn’t moving and the lady in front of me, who was obviously also trying to get off the train, wasn’t saying anything. She also knew I was behind her because she looked over her shoulder at me a couple times when I was shifting behind her to get ready to get off the train. So I pipe up and say “excuse me,” as a normal human being does.

The dude moves, but the lady whips around and snaps at me with “YES I KNOW I AM GETTING OFF AT THIS STOP AS WELL.”

My reaction was the following, spoken loudly: “Well I wasn’t talking to YOU, was I? I was talking to the gentleman standing in FRONT of you.” People are staring and I add, loudly as before, “So you really need to just RELAX.”

Now, what happened here was not something I am entirely proud of, for a variety of reasons. On my walk home from the train station I thought, how could I have made my point even better? I could’ve added, “I was talking to the gentleman standing in FRONT of you, who did not know you and I wanted to get off the train because YOU didn’t say ‘excuse me’ and he does not happen to have eyes in the back of his head.” My reason for saying this would’ve been to guilt her into realizing that she could’ve done something to avoid the entire issue. It would also serve to let the gentleman in front of her know that I had nothing against HIM not moving, only that the woman in front of me gave me attitude for no reason. I could’ve also added, in my second response, “All I did was exhibit that I, unlike SOME, have manners unless I am treated badly. In what universe is saying the words ‘excuse me’ a bad thing?”

That’s what I wished I had said. But what does it teach me, really?

I had more to say than I did actually say, and I reacted loudly because I did not appreciate being snapped at when I was actually trying to be polite. I wanted to let her know that I was not in fact being rude, and that her reaction was far ruder than my benign assumption that the guy in front of me was not going to move. But going deeper, I find myself asking: where did this come from? Was it a need to defend myself? Why did I feel the need to defend myself? Why did I raise my voice?

On further reflection, I did not raise my voice as a side-effect of anger. I raised my voice to draw attention from others in the vicinity. Why? Because her pissy reaction to me was overheard by others, and I wanted others to know that I, in fact, was not the one being rude. My loud rebuttal was a way for me to let others know that I wasn’t actually talking to her in a way that deserved her reaction.

I also found myself wondering why she reacted that way to me. Perth is not a city known for its acceptance of multiculturalism; put bluntly, there’s a lot of racism here. You can see and feel the exasperated, impatient attitude of people around you when a non-white person gets on a bus and asks the driver for directions in accented English. Was this woman racist, assuming that I didn’t understand how Perth’s public transportation system worked and so she was on the defensive as I opened my mouth?

Doubtful. I don’t like playing the race card. It’s an unhealthy attitude to take in these situations, anyway, and it’s also the “easy” answer to my question of why. If nothing else, going right to the race answer probably causes more problems than it solves. That’s probably the Third Culture Kid in me talking. More on that another time.

More likely, she’d had a bad day. It was the end of the work day and it makes sense that you just want to go home and relax. Maybe she’d had a bullshit day at work and was fuming about it and I piped up at exactly the wrong moment. Does that give her the right to snap at me? No, it doesn’t, but in reflecting on this situation further, I wonder: did I make her day any better by snapping at her, and did it make me feel any better about saying what I did?

The answer is no and a half-yes, half-no. By potentially humiliating her in front of a train full of passengers, whatever bullshit she’d experienced in her day was just compounded by a mouthy stranger on a train. And while snapping back at her made me feel a bit better because I was reassured that people on the train realized that I was not, in fact, being rude or impatient, on the realization that I did, in fact, make her possibly bad day worse took away that feeling of reassurance.

Was my need to be seen as the victor by a mass of strangers really that important that I should negate what someone else might be going through? By that same token, what right does this strange lady have to try to ruin my day? One may argue that I have every right to stand up for myself, but that seems pretty baseline to me. Why should I do something just because I have a RIGHT to do it? Moreover, why should I do that thing just because I was so concerned with what other people on the train thought of me?

You could also argue that the lady wasn’t actually having a bad day and that she’s just a bitch. Or maybe she really was a bit racist. I would respond with: “Does that matter?” Does the possibility of her actually being rude and maybe NEEDING to be put in her place override the possibility of her just being a normal person who had a shit day and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Then I think: what other way could I have approached this situation that allowed for BOTH possibilities? Maybe instead of snapping defensively, I could’ve said, “Look, maybe you’re having a bad day or something, I don’t know, but there’s no need to talk to me like that. As it is, I was talking to the gentleman in front of you.” And if anyone overhears me saying that, my own irrational need to be judged as a paragon of human decency by complete strangers (who probably don’t even care about what’s just happened) is also satisfied because I’ve “come out on top.”

My point here is that self-reflection is a process that is far deeper than many people seem to realize. It goes beyond what you can do to improve; it also includes the question of why. Why did you say that or behave that way or suggest that in the first place? Why did you interfere or not interfere?

It is by asking and answering those questions of why that you might actually find an even better answer to “what can I do to improve?” In my example, I demonstrated that my first look into what happened dealt primarily with my need to expunge myself of guilt and responsibility in the moment. As I drew it out, however, it became about wanting to hold myself to the ideal of being an understanding and patient individual. The next time something similar happens, then, I would endeavour to choose the option that best exhibits the standard to which I hold myself.

This kind of self-reflection goes far beyond the example I’ve discussed here (which is, incidentally, something that actually happened to me a couple of months ago). It applies to job performance, relationships, sports, counselling, and pretty much all forms of human interaction on any level. It sounds time-consuming, but I earnestly believe that reflecting on your actions and those around you can have a huge impact on improving your practical understanding of human behaviour as well as yourself. It promotes self-honesty and even self-confidence, as you approach a similar and subsequent situation with added confidence because you know you’ve put in the effort to think it through that little bit more.

You’re not going to handle every situation “right” the first or even the second time. Each reiteration of a similar situation is still different and unique in its own ways, depending on everything from your mood at the time to the weather to the setting. The idea is that with each “round” of self-reflection that takes place, it builds on what you know about yourself.

The best part? Self-reflection can be done anytime, anywhere, applying to pretty much anything. You are never short of opportunities to take a moment to think back on how that could’ve gone better or what you could learn from what happened. Really, it’s just about finding something that strikes you so hard (no matter how menial it appears) that you can’t immediately let it go… and figure out why it struck you so hard to begin with.

Maybe I’ll work on that whole “caring what other people think” thing in the meantime.