30 Self-Reflection Questions to Ask Yourself and Your Family

As a parent, spending time on yourself often takes a backburner to focusing on your kids.

From taking them to school, sports, and extracurricular activities, it sometimes feels like you don’t have a single second of free time. However, it is important to remember to take time for yourself to practice self-care.

Eating healthy, exercising, meditating, practicing yoga, and making sure to get enough sleep are all great ways to practice self-care. Something else you can try is practicing self-discovery.

This self-awareness technique can help you look at yourself more objectively and draw attention to the way you think, feel, and behave.

Through self-reflection, you can better understand yourself, which can help you gain clarity, challenge your beliefs, feel empowered, and even find creative answers to questions in your life. By self-reflecting, you can also be a great example to your kids and teach them the importance of lifelong learning, growing, and confidence. 

One of the best ways to practice self-reflection is to ask yourself questions about self-discovery. Below, I cover the benefits of self-discovery and offer some of my favorite self-discovery questions to help facilitate personal growth and improvement. 

Five Benefits of Self-Reflection

Self-discovery focuses on taking time to more deeply examine yourself and understand why (and how) certain parts of your life are being impacted. Being a practitioner of self-reflection takes focus, discipline, and an ability to be honest with yourself.

You need to be able to ask yourself thought-provoking questions and understand the root of where your answers are coming from. 

Popular tools for self-reflection include meditation, contemplative thought, and writing in journals. No matter how you decide to self-reflect, the benefits you gain from it are amazing. The top five benefits of self-reflection include:

#1 Boosting your Emotional Intelligence

Self-reflection takes the ability to candidly look inwards and build self-awareness. This, in turn, helps you understand your strengths and weaknesses, as well as your emotional drive, values, and relationships with those around you.

Self-reflection can also assist in developing self-control—you will gain the ability to redirect your frustrations and negative emotions to develop patience, calmness, and a better sense of self.

#2 Improving Relationships

 Sometimes, we lose the ability to see a situation clearly when we are so entangled within it ourselves. Self-reflection gives you the opportunity to take a step back, examine the situation, and work through interpersonal problems with others in a constructive manner. 

# 3 Helping Spot Opportunities and Threats

 Some of you may be familiar with the SWOT framework, which helps identify internal strengths and weaknesses, along with external opportunities and threats. If you are candid with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses during self-reflection, this can help you spot external opportunities and threats in your life to help you navigate the ups and downs of daily life. 

#4 Boosting Confidence

 As a parent, it’s crucial to be confident in yourself to be an example to your children of how to be strong and self-assured. Confidence helps improve decision-making, influence, and can even aid in your communication with others. 

#5 Fostering Growth

 Self-reflection helps you develop a sharper mind and a stronger sense of self by focusing your energy on understanding your daily life. This can help foster growth and improve your overall productivity by helping you stay more in tune with yourself. 

Self-Discovery Questions to Ask Yourself

It may be easiest to start with one question a day, spending time honing in on your answer before moving on to the next. After some time, you can increase this to around ten questions per day—but remember, the best path to self-discovery is the one that works well for you. 

I’ve put together some of my favorite self-discovery questions along with some personal and family self-discovery printables (courtesy of the University of St. Augustine) you can download. 

Here are 20 self-discovery questions to ask yourself:

1. What are three of my most cherished values?
2. What is my purpose in life?
3. What is my personality type?
4. Did I make time for myself this week?
5. Am I making time for my social life?
6. What scares me the most right now?
7. What is something I find inspiring?
8. What is something that brings me joy?
9. When is the last time I gave back to others?
10. What matters to me most right now?
11. What’s something I would like to do more of and why?
12. What’s something I would like to do less of and why?
13. What three words describe me best?
14. What keeps me awake at night?
15. How important is my physical health to me?
16. How important is my mental health to me?
17. Have I been holding myself back in any way?
18. What obstacles get in the way of my happiness?
19. What are my greatest gifts?
20. What could I do to be happier?

Here are 10 great family-oriented self-discovery questions to ask yourself: 

21. Whom do I go to when I need advice?
22. How am I feeling in my family life?
23. What makes me happiest about my family?
24. Are there certain family members who drain my energy?
25. Did a family member make me smile this week and why?
26. Am I holding grudges against a family member? If so, why?
27. What is my favorite memory about my family?
28. Do I listen to my family more than myself?
29. What am I thankful for about my family?
30. Which family member do I admire most?

Final Thoughts: Questions to Ask Yourself

Asking yourself these reflective questions is a great way to feel more connected with yourself. As a parent, it can be easy to get caught up in daily life and forget to take time for yourself. Finding a balance between caring for yourself and focusing on your family is important to maintain your mental health and wellbeing.

To help remind you to spend on yourself, try printing out these questions and hanging them around your home or office for a small daily reminder of why self-reflection is so important.

Julia Morrissey is a content creator who works to develop helpful guides and compelling stories. Her passion for creative writing has led her to cover unique topics ranging from business to lifestyle. She calls New York City home and enjoys spending time with her rescue dog, running in Central Park, and finding new vegan dining options around the city.