January is an interesting month. Remnants of the past year seep into the new as we reflect on 2025 and craft our vision for the months ahead.
As someone who spent New Year’s Eve making 2026 vision boards and bingo cards with my friends, I appreciate the allotted time to reflect and dream of new goals in an attempt to grow into the person I’m becoming.
Yet, I’m also aware that the new year can teeter into a time of obsessive navel-gazing. Between the journaling and goal-setting, it’s possible to practice too much introspection – at least, too much of one kind.
The classic conception of introspection is an inward experience. You peer into your own head, meditate on the self, and ask questions like, “Who am I?” or “Why am I here?” While this type of reflection can be helpful, excessive self-mediation can be anxiety-inducing. It can cause us to always be evaluating instead of experiencing, to accidentally create limited models of ourselves and what we’re capable of.
But there’s another type of introspection: introspection by doing. This kind of introspection requires action – doing stuff and then observing how it makes you feel. You’re like a scientist performing a bunch of small experiments in an attempt to figure out the composition of this person, that is, yourself!
Active introspection may require you to lose yourself in your surroundings, your work, or your art for a little bit. Instead of ruminating on your existence, it requires you to go out into the world and expand your peripheral vision. This might mean putting yourself in new situations, pushing yourself beyond your limits, talking to strangers, or simply being more present with those around you. It’s leaning into what ignites your energy and listening to how life is calling you, rather than ruminating on what you feel like you should be squeezing out of life.
Obviously, both types of introspection are necessary. Accumulated experiences won’t translate into change if you don’t take a pause from doing. Writers often struggle to achieve a similar balance, realizing they need to actually live life in order to write about it.
But as my senior year quickly comes to a close, I find the idea of “introspection by doing” a tangible antidote to the anxiety of post-grad life. When we exist in uncertainty, attention is what remains within our reach: the willingness to loosen our grip on a sense of control, the humility to recognize that we don’t have all the answers and the discipline to notice what’s in front of us.
As Austrian poetRainer Maria Rilke said, “Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
This year, I challenge you to immerse yourself in the “doing.” You won’t discover what fills your cup unless you tap into different faucets and taste the water. Cheers!