How often should you do introspection/retrospection?

[housecards]

This is basically the "Action vs Reflection" balance, and this might be a question whose answer is the omni-true "it depends" since every person is wired differently in this respect, although it can be changed over one's lifetime. However, it still triggers my curiosity when I came across a passage of this classic, fantastic self-help book Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, in Chapter 11 "Unlocking your real personality":

"Conscious self-criticism, self-analysis, and introspection is good and useful - if undertaken perhaps once a year. But as a continual, moment-by-moment, day-by-day, sort of second-guessing yourself, or playing Monday-morning quarterback to your past actions - it is defeating. Watch for this self-criticism - pull yourself up short and stop it."

This passage aims at telling readers to act more disinhibited and not be overly critical to their past actions. It is certainly an advice to people whose personality is on the inhibited side of the spectrum, like myself. Personally, I am more of the "research and know the science, then do and practice the art" type of personality. Not to say this is bad; in fact this is helpful for certain activities such as investing, but when it comes to pick up girls, it is absolutely results-wrecking and delaying success. But as Dr. Maltz suggests, "conscious self-criticism, self-analysis, introspection is good and useful if undertaken perhaps ONCE A YEAR"???

I might be overly analytical since I do that sort of analysis almost every day. However, it does trigger my curiosity. How often do/should you sit down in a quiet environment (may be after a bit meditation), analyze your past experience, and think about ways for improvement? Be that in seduction/girls or just everyday work/professional activities

 

[Parkour]

I think introspection should be often. Checking in with yourself to see how you’re feeling, what you’re thinking is part of just being aware. Retrospection has limited uses. I like journaling and processing somethings I did a while back that I would do differently now. It is part of learning. The problem is how it interferes with living now. Our mind is the ultimate distraction/escape that can keep us from pushing through the moment and having an authentic experience.

 

[Hue]

Yea once a year is fucking crazy.

Like you said this article is most applicable to those on the more "inhibited" side. One of my friends is very much this way and tends to hold himself back in scenario's where he could be going beast mode, or at the very least has the capacity to enjoy himself more - yet out of principle & paralysis analysis of potential consequences will remain timid.

I'm sure there's an optimal frequency for deep introspection for every person, but it also depends on how you're doing the introspection. Rumination =/= introspection, and I can speak from experience on that (though they're not mutually exclusive, and one can trigger the other). If you're going deep, deep, like the totality of your person all the time, that's just exhaustive. If you're reflecting on something with your game, "I noticed that when my body is turned toward the girl when I open her I hook less than it being turned away, then turning into her", and then planning action thereafter that will actually help you.

Part of this is being "in-state" too which can produce great results and I've found to be much more enjoyable, but without introspection you might not catch yourself on mistakes you've made from just going with the flow / instinct. Instinct is powerful and effective, but does require tempering at times.

Rather than think about exactly how often one should do it, perhaps consider introspection serving as a tool to achieve some goal, find other tools, or fix problems. Very generally speaking, if you find that you're not getting the results you want, reflect, diagnose, and then try something out. Once you've found what you need, take action on it until you need to use it again. But if you've got success flowing your way, try and fix something that's not broken? It's a balance of not getting lost in the weeds while not having too many blindspots.


Hue