When to Look in The Mirror

And when to look through the window

Our frames are constantly shifting. My last shift, late last year came earmarked by exhaustion, frustration and resentment.

It had been exactly a year since I went out my own professionally, offering services on a fractional basis. And while I had amassed a healthy roster of clients, I found myself stretched thin and resource poor, even more shackled to the work than I was under the corporate 9-to-5 regime.

“This is not why I decided to do this”, I thought to myself. “Where is the freedom of time?”. I was working later, working weekends, constantly in a state of urgency, rushing to complete deliverables across all projects, and always tired and snappy. I had started sacrificing personal wellness, “I’ll skip the gym so I can get a head start on my day” I thought, or work through lunch to get the additional hour and by the end of the day I couldn’t be present and participative in my family life. They had become the ultimate sacrifice.

“How did I get here?” “What am I doing that is allowing this to become my reality?” It was a mirror moment.

The Mirror

When I talk about the mirror, I mean the inward gaze; Examining our motives, noticing patterns of resistance, acknowledging fears and confronting inherited beliefs. Taking account of where I show up and where I don’t and assuming responsibility for it.

Carl Rogers referred to this as the actualising tendency. He posits that all individuals posses the fundamental motivation to develop and grow to become full functioning person. This is a process of becoming more congruent with who we truly are, when the idea of self is aligned with the actual self. “What I say aligns with what I believe, and do.” The mirror helps to reveal the cracks in that alignment.

It asks:

Where am I still borrowing belief systems that aren’t mine?
What parts of my behaviour am I justifying?
What am I not seeing because I’m projecting a reflection I want to see?

Looking in the mirror is humbling because it doesn’t always give us the answers we hoped for. It shows us our blindspots (and demands responsibility for them). This is where personal growth gets real, because only here can we build internal systems that actually hold us, allowing us to scale ourselves into our fully actualised state.

But the window is only one half of the frame.

The Window

The window is where we observe the world beyond our reflection. Noticing social dynamics, identifying environmental constraints, recognising gaps and opportunities and understanding patterns.

This aligns with what is often called situational awareness: the ability to interpret external cues and understand how they affect behaviour and decision-making.

In Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, he classifies the fourth need, Esteem, as the human desire for self-worth and acceptance by others. He approached this in two forms: Esteem for oneself and esteem from the world. He theorised that self-actualisation happens not only inside the self but in situational context as well. (How you fit in the world and how the world responds to you.)

Looking through the window asks:

What patterns are emerging around me that I must understand?
What opportunities exist because of forces outside my control?
What gaps in the environment am I uniquely positioned to fill?

If the mirror confronts responsibility, the window invites curiosity and asks for strategy.

Recognising Window from Mirror

One of the most subtle difficulties in personal growth is knowing when to look where.

Focus too long on the mirror alone, and you risk solipsism: believing that all patterns originate from you, not unlike being self-absorbed or egomaniacal.
Focus too long through the window alone, and you risk externalising blame and assuming all patterns originate outside of you. See ‘victim mentality’

The discipline of actualisation is in the balance.

This is where brand thinking (something I’ve written about in organisational contexts) becomes deeply personal.

In brand strategy, we study patterns:

• internal patterns (values, behaviours, decision filters)

• external patterns (market dynamics, cultural shifts)

A strong brand doesn’t only know itself but it also reads the environment accurately and adapts without losing coherence. The same holds true in personal growth.

We use the mirror to notice internal patterns: recurring reactions, emotional blindspots, belief systems that shape behaviour.
And we use the window to notice external patterns: social feedback, cultural expectations, relationship dynamics, evolving opportunities.

When both are aligned, when our internal structures interacts with external realities with fidelity, we move from accumulating insight to embodying wisdom.

Living Between Window and Mirror

Our inner world and outer world are not separate realms; they are continuous fields of meaning. Philosophers have been circling this for centuries.

Existentialism explores the view that individuals define a meaningful life through personal responsibility and deliberate choice. Jean-Paul Sartre emphasised self-responsibility as the idea that we are the authors of our own lives, not passive characters in someone else’s narrative. This is the mirror work, acceptance of agency, even when it’s uncomfortable.

Pragmatism explores the view that ideas, beliefs and values are not final truths but tools for navigating a conditional reality. In John Dewey’s Quest for Certainty, he argues that values are formed through practical inquiry, problem-solving and social outcomes.

The mirror and the window are not alternatives, they are two sides of the same truth that we switch between, depending on what’s asking to be seen.

Per Jim Collins’ Good to Great, when you want to attribute success look out the window, but when challenges or failures arise, look into the mirror. And that’s what helped me notice the gaps in my working model that allowed for my reality.