50+ Best Self-reflection Quotes For Change And Success

Taking time for self-reflection appears to be a luxury that most people cannot afford in this day and age of the internet and fast-paced life. However, it is one activity in which we should make a concerted effort if we want something to happen in our lives.

As stated by Maya Angelou, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

And one effective tool you can use for change to happen within yourself and your attitude is the practice of self-reflection. Taking time to review your thoughts, actions, and behavior promotes change and eventual success.

Allowing yourself to open up and spend time reflecting on yourself will help you gain a better understanding of yourself. You will learn what makes you tick, what inspires you, what emotions drive you to action, your values, and what matters most to you.

Furthermore, with a better understanding of who you are and who you want to become, you can set attainable goals and devise a feasible long-term plan of action.

Finally, let the wisdom of the quotes in this article inspire you as you embark on your journey of introspection.

50+ Self-reflection quotes

Here are 50+ of the best self-reflection quotes for change and success to help you on your journey of personal reflection. These quotes provide the best arguments for beginning to reflect on yourself and your life; they are also excellent at providing important reasons for self-reflection and the benefits that self-reflection can provide.

That being said, please enjoy reading and feel free to share this page with family and friends to spread the wisdom of self-reflection.

Best self-reflection quotes

The journey into self-love and self-acceptance must begin with self-examination… until you take the journey of self-reflection, it is almost impossible to grow or learn in life.

– Iyanla Vanzant

2. There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.
– Aldos Huxley

3. Self-reflection is the gateway to freedom. It also brings greater appreciation and enjoyment. We begin to enjoy spending time with our own mind, and we enjoy reflecting on our experience of the teachings. Like the sun emerging from behind the clouds, the teachings of the dharma become clear.
– Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

4. Self-reflection is a much kinder teacher than regret is. Prioritize yourself by making a habit of it.
– Andrena Sawyer

5. The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself but creating yourself anew. Seek, therefore, not to find out who you are, seek to determine what you want to be.
– Neal Donald Walsch

6. Honest self-understanding liberates us from our stuck emotions.
– C Terry Warner

7. Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.
– Margaret J. Wheatley

8. Self-reflection entails asking yourself questions about your values, assessing your strengths and failures, thinking about your perceptions and interactions with others, and imagining where you want to take your life in the future.
– Robert L. Rosen

9. Even if you think you’re doing well and have it all figured out, there is a voice you will always inevitably hear at some point which nags at you and says but wait… Don’t ever dismiss it, listen to what it has to say. Life will never be close enough to perfect, and listening to that voice means stepping outside of yourself and considering your own wrongdoings and flaws.
– Ashly Lorenzana

10. Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know myself, to know it completely.
– Kahlil Gibran

11. Self-reflection is a humbling process. It’s essential to find out why you think, say, and do certain things…. then better yourself.
– Sonya Teclai

12. Almost universally, when people look back on their lives while on their deathbed […] they wish they had spent more time with the people and activities they truly loved and less time worrying about aspects of life that, upon deeper examination, really don’t matter at all that much. Imagining yourself at your own funeral allows you to look back at your life while you still have the chance to make some important changes.
– Richard Carlson

13. Emotions are there to enjoy life; but they are not used in self-reflection because they inhibit a proper reflection. They gunk us up.
– Frederick Lenz

14. Self-reflection is an important stage to diagnose, develop and strengthen your creativity.
– Pearl Zhu

15. Engaging in meditative self-reflection and gaining increased control of inner experiences provides a person with a sense of control over fear and trembling and the chaos of life.
– Kilroy J. Oldster

Positive self-reflection quotes

16. Self-awareness gives you the capacity to learn from your mistakes as well as your successes.
– Lawrence Bossidy

17. The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms; and to confide in one’s self, and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course.
– Michel Angelo

18. Reflection is one of the most underused yet powerful tools for success.
– Richard Carlson

19. It is when you lose sight of yourself, that you lose your way. To keep your truth in sight you must keep yourself in sight and the world to you should be a mirror to reflect to you your image; the world should be a mirror that you reflect upon.
– C. JoyBell C.

20. Our self-image, strongly held, essentially determines what we become.
– Maxwell Maltz

21. Your soul needs time for solitude and self-reflection. In order to love, lead, heal, and create, you must nourish yourself first.
– Louise Hay

22. Your life is a reflection of your thoughts. If you change your thinking, you change your life.
– Brian Tracy

23. To achieve happiness I advocate four major principles, the principles of love, wisdom, self-reflection, and progress.
– Ryuho Okawa

24. Examination of our past is never time-wasting. Reverberations from the past provide learning rubrics for living today.
– Kilroy J. Oldsterunder

25. The cosmos is evolving toward greater self-reflection, allowing us to open the eye of Spirit and see our source.
– Alex Grey

26. By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
– Confucius

27. Time spent in self-reflection is never wasted – it is an intimate date with yourself.
– Paul TP Wong

28. I thank God for my failures. Maybe not at the time but after some reflection. I never feel like a failure just because something I tried has failed.
– Dolly Parton

Inspiring self-reflection quotes

29. The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
– Thomas Paine

30. These years in silence and reflection made me stronger and reminded me that acceptance has to come from within and that this kind of truth gives me the power to conquer emotions I didn’t even know existed.
– Ricky Martin

31. Change is your friend, not your foe; change is a brilliant opportunity to grow.
– Simon T. Bailey

32. Your soul needs time for solitude and self-reflection. In order to love, lead, heal and create you must nourish yourself first.
– Linda Joy

33. Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
– Carl Jung

34. Life has a tendency to provide a person with what they need in order to grow. Our beliefs, what we value in life, provide the roadmap for the type of life that we experience. A period of personal unhappiness reveals that our values are misplaced and we are on the wrong path. Unless a person changes their values and ideas, they will continue to experience discontentment.
– Kilroy J. Oldster

35. Self-reflection is necessary to dig beneath our own layers and visit the inner crevices of our heart and mind to develop an understanding of life.
– Unknown

36. A man must find time for himself. Time is what we spend our lives with. If we are not careful we find others spending it for us. . . . It is necessary now and then for a man to go away by himself and experience loneliness; to sit on a rock in the forest and to ask of himself, ‘Who am I, and where have I been, and where am I going?’ . . . If one is not careful, one allows diversions to take up one’s time—the stuff of life.
– Carl Sandburg

37. We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.
– John Dewey

38. We are human, and, being human, we are imperfect creatures. Through the process of injury, self-examination, and amends, we grow. We all grow.
– Shellen Lubin

Instagrammable quotes on self-reflection

39. It is always our own self that we find at the end of the journey. The sooner we face that self, the better.
– Ella Maillart

40. There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
– Ernest Hemingway

41. Reflective thinking turns experience into insight.
– John C. Maxwell

42. Unless you learn to face your own shadows, you will continue to see them in others, because the world outside you is only a reflection of the world inside you.
– Unknown

43. Compare less. Reflect more.
– Unknown

44. Before I ask you to sit with me, I must be able to sit with myself. Before I ask you to accept my pain, I have to accept the pain myself. Before I ask you to love me, I have to be madly in love with myself.
– C. Thoth

45. Dwell not on the faults and shortcomings of others; instead, seek clarity about your own.
– Buddha

46. When you continuously compete with others you become bitter, but when you continuously compete with yourself you become better.
– Marie Blanchard

47. Time and reflection change the sight little by little ’til we come to understand.
– Paul Cezanne

48. There is no greater journey than the one that you must take to discover all of the mysteries that lie within you.
– Michelle Sandlin

49. Difficulty creates the opportunity for self-reflection and compassion. – Suzan-Lori Parks
– Michelle Sandlin

50. People who have had little self-reflection live life in a huge reality blind spot.
– Bryant McGill

51. I never make the same mistake twice. I make it like five or six times, you know, just to be sure.
– Unknown

52. Self-reflection is the school of wisdom.
– Baltasar Gracian

53. Self-reflection is a desire felt by the body, as well as the soul.
– Susan Griffin

54. One of the greatest tragedies in life is to lose your own sense of self and accept the version of you that is expected by everyone else.
– K.L. Toth

55. It is not as much about who you used to, as it is about who you choose to be.
– Sanhita Baruah

Learnings from self-reflection quotes

Based on the wisdom shared in the previous section’s quotes, we can conclude that self-reflection is an excellent practice to incorporate into our daily lives because self-reflection-

Enables you to learn and grow in life,
Gives you freedom, greater appreciation, and enjoyment,
Enables you to understand yourself better for change and improvement,
Helps to diagnose, develop and strengthen your creativity,
Gives you control over your emotions such as fear,
Gives you strength and courage,
Allows learning from past mistakes and experiences,
Provides wisdom and insight,
Provides clarity and focus, and
Calms the chaos in your life.

How to practice self-reflection

Self-reflection is an essential practice and habit to cultivate in order to improve our professional and personal lives. It is necessary to develop skills, reassess your habits and align daily routines to your goals.

So whether you are embarking on a new venture, finding solutions to problems, starting a new project, or looking to improve yourself further. Starting with self-reflection is your best move forward.

If you are new to the practice of self-reflection, here are some pointers to get you started. Figure out what works best for you based on your surroundings and the amount of time you have available.

1. Practice with insightful questions

Identify the key questions you want to ask yourself about your habits, accomplishments, and feelings from the time period you are reflecting on.

Examples of questions to ask yourself are the following:

How do I feel today? What were my general thoughts, actions, or reactions?
How could I have made my day better?
What are the 3 important things in my life?
What could I have achieved in the past if I tried a little more diligently?
How can I achieve more in the future?

2. Write down your thoughts

In a reflection journal, write out each question and answer. Putting pen to paper allows you to get your thoughts out in the open, can provide clarity, and is frequently quite revealing. The journal allows you to reflect on your journey as you move forward.

If you are not into writing, try audio journaling by either recording or filming yourself while asking and answering the important questions. Reviewing your responses later can assist you in recognizing various thoughts and feelings. Allowing you to gain clarity, express yourself, and recognize how far you have come.

3. Meditation or other breathing exercises

“To breathe properly is to live properly,” says Robin Sharma.

Connecting with your breath is thus another technique for self-reflection that can help you think more clearly, openly, and honestly. This is because breathing exercises can help you slow down, clear your mind, and concentrate.

4. Take a walk

According to a recent study, self-reflection while walking may have some of the same benefits as professional counseling. The study, which was published in 2021, discovered that walking helps overcome the stresses of life and provides a greater sense of calm.

As such, walking is yet another way to reflect on how to live your best life.

5. Read

Reading on a variety of subjects and genres can also help in self-reflection by allowing you to identify with the characters in the stories, whether fiction or nonfiction.

You can improve the process even more by pausing as you read the book or article to reflect on what you have just read. You can also write down what you learned from your reading.

Taking time to reflect allows you to consider the words and their meaning to you, as well as to help you remember what you read. It also allows you to recall key concepts and use them in other situations later. You can also use them eventually to generate ideas for your current work or a new project.

Summary

Every day, we are so preoccupied with work, parental responsibilities, errands, and chores that we have little time for self-reflection.

However, self-reflection is a practice that you should cultivate and maintain because it is the most effective tool for discovering, changing, and achieving success in your personal and professional life.

As the 50+ best self-reflection quotes in the previous section demonstrate, self-reflection is important and beneficial in many ways as it allows you to grow, learn, become strong, have courage, manage your emotions, gain clarity, and focus.

Finally, there are numerous ways for you to practice self-reflection; you simply need to find one that works with your schedule and the environment you are in.

Please share your thoughts or ideas about 50+ Best Self-reflection Quotes For Change And Success in the comments below. For more quotes, check out…

One Response

whoiscall says:

June 20, 2023 at 12:59 am

Thanks!

Reply