The Power of Reflection
My therapist hands me a journal and tells me to write it in it every night. The first seven pages in the journal are filled, the eighth has substantially less words, I forget to fill the ninth, and when I pick up the journal again it’s day 27. I knew there was power in reflection, but the additional 10 minutes of sleep was too enticing to give up as a sleep-deprived college student.
Five half-filled journals later…
The flood of thoughts that I assumed I had filtered through and solved seeped back into my mind during COVID-19. The pandemic’s flood of time alone and anxiety from encountering people contributed to positive and negative spirals. I know I have it better than so many, but the feeling of isolation is a shared experience amongst billions. I tried to turn to therapy, but the waitlists were absurdly long. Friends and family were effective areas of help, but most of my thoughts were undefined and unknown…
In the past, journaling has served as a private conversation space, one that was unfiltered and judgment-free. It felt good to be able to look back on previous days, maybe better or worse days, and reimagine my mental state at the time.
However, the piles of half-filled journals mocked and intimidated me. I would consider myself a curious person and wanted to create a system for myself that would make it easy to reflect. It had to be something that integrated in my habits, was positive, and could be done anywhere!
My ideas in order of implementation:
Move journaling online: I spent all of my time on my computer anyway, so this would be convenient. It became way too easy to open up Facebook instead of my Google Doc.
Create a social component around journaling: I had read online that social accountability is super successful and had great yield in working towards a goal. It did initially, until I came up with enough excuses not to respond to my friend’s questions.
*Ideas 3-10 are not worthy of your time, but taught me that I love interesting questions and prefer reflecting without any*
11. Create a text messaging tool that sends me text messages asking me how I’m feeling every day. It became a fun routine. My next step was to figure out if there was a way to see my messages from the past. My Excel and Powerpoint skills were no match for this level of detail and I started bringing passionate individuals onto a “team.” We were trying to help reflection be easier and more fun.
Canded is a tool I use every day, and each individual who tries it has a different reaction/experience. Some say it’s great for their reflection habits, others just like seeing our questions and don’t feel the need to respond. It’s easy to get caught up in metrics, but this project has helped me redefine metrics of success to the amount of thought a Canded question inspires.
There are definitely some days I don’t respond to questions, but rather than 40% of the time I respond 85% of the time, which is a success to me. Feel free to drop your favorite question or something you wish someone would ask you and check out Canded at Canded.me.
Ankit Sheth is a consultant and founder based in D.C. He is passionate about serving people and wants to make healthier mental health more accessible. In light of the many thoughts brought on during quarantine, he is working on Canded. Learn more at Canded.me or follow us on instagram @askcanded!