Difference between Reflection and Evaluation
On every New Year’s day, I write a yearly reflection. It has become my small ritual since 2008 and I enjoy it a lot. I find a nice cozy cafe that opens on New Year’s day, sit down on the corner and write down experiences, feelings, and people I got to meet in the last year.
This year, I was feeling bittersweet about my 2019. While it was an exciting journey with lots of trial and error, there were full of plans and a lack of execution. So, this year, I added a new practice on top of daily journaling. I decide to write down a few objectives and watch the progress biweekly (And monthly, quarterly, and yearly).
This sounds too meticulous and almost ‘harsh’ on me. But I realized it can be quite simple, light, and fun depending on the type of objectives you set. More importantly, it depends on how you see the progress. What I have tried is to regard progress as something that happens, not something that should happen. For that, I distinguish reflection from the evaluation.
Self-reflection and self-evaluation happen both within yourself. To me, it is a conversation between my inner voice and ‘myself’. For the convenience to share my story, I will give my inner voice a name, Sam.
When I am in the mode of evaluation, Sam puts on a judgemental lens. Whatever she evaluates comes down to either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ category. She often talks about the things that I did poorly more so than what I did well. She doesn’t necessarily talk in a mean, harsh, and demeaning way. But, I feel diminished and minimized while waiting for Sam to tell me what to do next.
On the other hand, when I switch to the mode of reflection, Sam does not judge but reflect on my behavior. She simply observes what happened and whatnot. She notices that some things are done and others remain on the list. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Then, she gives me the floor and disappears. From there on, I take over and decide what I am going to do next.
What makes a difference in these two cases? It is the underlying assumption Sam has about me and the idea of progress. When Sam is in evaluation mode, she tends to see me as someone that needs to be educated, taught, and led. She takes the lead and suggests what I should do because she thinks progress should happen at a time that Sam has in mind regardless of how I feel about it.
On the other hand, when Sam in the reflection mode, she assumes that it is not her job to tell me what to do because I am capable of taking charge. Like Sam in the evaluation mode, She still is up there in my head watching my behavior. But her purpose is not to find flaws to be fixed but to observe what is going on. She simply shares her observation and lets me decide if there is something I want to fix. She assists me by reminding me of the initial direction I wanted to take but that is it. She does not leave any insinuation of what is good or bad. Again, it is up to me to decide if I want to pursue the direction I set.
With the reflective mode on, I feel calm even if I have no checkbox to tick off on that week. I will try it next month again if I want to. In that regard, reflection fundamentally differs from the evaluation. A reflective lens see a person who is free and capable of taking in charge of her or his own decision. That view is more liberating, energizing, and empowering.
For instance, this month, I planned to write two blogs in Korean and English respectively. And I planned to watch my time spent on social media, read 5 books of my choice, and finish 6 chapters of English vocabulary. I wrote them down in the monthly section on the 1st of July.
A few days ago it was 15th of July and I did my bi-weekly reflection. So far, I have written 2 blog posts in Korean and 1 in English. But I finished only 1 book and 2 chapters of English vocabulary. I realized if I had used my time more wisely (less on Youtube) then, I could have spared sufficient time on reading. Overall it seemed I was behind the schedule.
Somehow, I didn’t feel disappointed. Rather, I was calm and motivated to make amends in the next two weeks. To be sure, I have been more on the side of feeling frustration and guilt whenever I didn’t manage to do things I promised myself to do. And, I attribute this major shift I notice after 6 months of the trial to changing my mode of inner voice from evaluation to reflection.
