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What’s the main goal of introspection?

The goal of introspection is to lead you to action.

But, most of the time, that’s the part we skip. When we’re looking inward, we dwell on all the things we did wrong, and then we chew on it. And that’s the part we need to change.

Because an insight without action is just mental clutter.

Without an action plan, introspection slowly becomes something else. Psychologist Ethan Kross calls it chatter: the same negative thoughts repeat, with your attention zoomed in so tightly on the problem that you forget to zoom out.

I imagine it like a court hearing where you review the evidence (which
you’ve already seen), cross-examine yourself at weird hours like 1 am and call the same witness again and again. 

In real life, a courtroom ends with a clear verdict and action. 

Here are three tips to make your own introspection-after-plan:

1. Take a purposeful pause

When you’re stuck, survival instinct calls on us to think harder. But thinking is also doing something. And we already spend the day doing, doing, doing, and even when we finally stop moving, we keep thinking. So, it helps to slow down a bit and pause for a little while. 

Don’t confuse this with meditation. Lately we think of meditation also as a task which involves closing your eyes, sitting up straight, breathing in a particular way. I mean something simpler. Five or ten minutes of doing nothing at all. Sit by a window, take a shower, or walk slowly outside. If you prefer you can look at what’s around you: a tree, the light on a wall, someone's music next door (but just don’t look at your own phone, that doesn't count). 

The Dutch also have a word for this, niksen, which means doing nothing on purpose. 

It helps to keep your eyes open and your attention outside. If a thought about the problem shows up, let it walk past. It isn’t your job right now. If it keeps coming back, get up and go outside.

It might not make sense, but slowing down sometimes solves half the problem. You often come back to it with a clearer head, and a smaller problem than the one you left.

2. Reach a verdict, not a life sentence

Once you’ve paused, give yourself one line. Just one line is good enough.

“____ could have gone better. ____ is what went wrong.”

That’s your verdict. And that means you don’t need to do a full postmortem. It’s not required to replay every moment.

Notice what the line is about: what you did, not who you are. That difference matters more than it looks. 

Because our mental chatter almost always drifts towards shame. It never stops at “you handled that meeting badly”. It moves on to “you always do this” and “what's wrong with you?”

So keep your verdict small and specific. “I spoke over my colleague in the meeting”  is a verdict. 

3. Act on it, then move on

This is the step that matters most: take action.

Don’t wait until you feel ready, and don’t think it through one more time first. Overthinking always finds a good reason to wait. The longer you sit with the plan, the more it slides back into rumination.

So keep it simple. Ask yourself what one thing you can do to make it better, and pick something small enough to do this week. If you spoke over a colleague in a meeting, that might mean sending them a quick message, or waiting your turn in the next one. It doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be done.

Then move on. Don’t go back to check whether you did it well enough, or whether you’ve thought about it enough. You’ve done your part. Your mind lets go far more easily once something has actually changed than when you keep telling it to stop.

Do it, and let that be the end of it.

We love you,
Mona & The Sol TV Team ❤️

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