Reasonably Unreasonable Self-Reflection
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
Cookson credits self-reflection, done organically all the way through Myprotein, as a core driver of continual improvement — and gives it a calibration rule. Be self-critical and ask yourself the awkward questions, but be 'reasonably unreasonable': harder on yourself than is comfortable, without being unfair or cruel. The other half is non-negotiable — when you have done something well, sit down and give yourself a pat on the back. Self-reflection in a nutshell is getting the balance right between overly confident and overly critical. He also gives a deep-dive version of the practice: writing a memoir. Working on his book took him to a new level of depth about his own strengths and gaps, and he recommends it to anyone, published or not, as a way to make the next period of life better.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Reflect deliberately and continually
Make reviewing what you did a standing habit rather than a crisis response. Cookson describes always looking at what he could do and always wanting to continually improve, running the loop throughout the whole life of Myprotein.
- 2
Ask the awkward questions
Interrogate your own decisions the way you would challenge a candidate: why didn't I do that, could this have been done better, what did I avoid. The awkward questions are the ones that carry the information.
- 3
Be reasonably unreasonable
Don't be nice or overly fair with yourself — be a little bit unreasonable, but only a little. The point is to make yourself do better and to challenge yourself, not to punish. If you cannot challenge yourself and make yourself proud of what you are striving for, who can you do it for?
Pro tip It has to start from within — external accountability is a poor substitute for self-set standards.
Watch out Too much unreasonableness tips into being unfair with yourself, which Cookson explicitly rules out.
- 4
Do the other half — pat yourself on the back
When you have done something well, stop and acknowledge it explicitly. Cookson treats this as a required counterweight, not an optional indulgence. In his own review he identified genuine excellence in product development and website development and concluded he should credit himself for it.
- 5
Calibrate the balance
Self-reflection is the balance between being overly confident and overly critical. Check periodically which side you are drifting to and correct — the practice fails at both extremes, not just the harsh one.
- 6
Go deep by writing a memoir
Periodically write a long-form account of a defined period of your life — a timeline of years, then what happened in each, then chapter-level structure. Cookson found that putting pen to paper took him to a whole new level of depth and made him better at improving himself.
Pro tip You do not need a publisher or an extraordinary story; Cookson recommends it even for a life lived in inverted commas normally.
Watch out Expect it to surface uncomfortable material — his findings included being naturally shy and having been emotionally detached where he could have been more compassionate.
In the wild
Cookson began his book by building a timeline from 1979 to 2011, marking what happened in each year, then fleshing out a synopsis per chapter. The act of structuring his own history pushed his self-reflection to a new depth. On the positive side he concluded he had genuinely excelled within his own capabilities on product development and website development, and should credit himself for it. On the negative side he identified that he is naturally shy and an introvert despite how he is perceived, that he could break out of that shell more, and that in certain situations he had been very detached emotionally where he could have been more compassionate.
→ A balanced, specific self-assessment he describes as making him better at improving himself.
An operator with no book deal applies the deep-dive step at smaller scale: every quarter she writes 1,500 words narrating the previous three months as a story rather than a status report — what happened, what she chose, what she avoided. She then runs both halves of the balance explicitly, listing the awkward questions she would rather not answer, and separately the two or three things she did genuinely well. The narrative form surfaces patterns that a metrics review misses, in the way Cookson's mother asking about a forgotten Myprotein story revealed how much detail he had already lost.
→ A repeatable reflection artefact that improves the following quarter and preserves the record.
Common mistakes
Only doing the critical half
Cookson's rule is explicitly two-sided: be reasonably unreasonable, then on the flip give yourself a pat on the back. Running only the self-critical pass is not rigour, it is imbalance, and it fails his own definition — self-reflection in a nutshell is getting the balance between overly confident and overly critical right.
Being unfair rather than unreasonable
The qualifier 'reasonably' is load-bearing. Cookson says don't be nice with yourself, be a little bit unreasonable — just yourself a little, not too much. Crossing into being unfair with yourself stops producing better decisions and starts producing the mental-health drag he separately identifies as an overlooked entrepreneurial problem.
Waiting for a story worth writing down
Cookson recommends the memoir exercise to anyone, including people who have lived what he calls a normal life in inverted commas, and says you do not need to be published. Deferring the deep-dive until your life feels remarkable enough forfeits the compounding benefit — and, as his forgotten Myprotein anecdote showed, memory only degrades from here.
From the transcript
“And be reasonably unreasonable with yourself. Be reasonably unreasonable.”
“It's a balance between being overly confident and overly critical. But, get that balance right, and that's self-reflection in a nutshell.”
“Maybe you don't need to get published, but write a memoir.”
From the episode
How To Bootstrap £500 into £350 Million - Oliver Cookson Founder of Myprotein
Oliver Cookson