The Need for Self-Reflection

So I was reading a paper on Buddhism for my class, and it was espousing some of the same things I believe.  The one I focus on here - the need for an effective means of self-dialogue/self-reflection.  I think that too many people in the world go through their lives from moment to moment, but never living there.  Each day is a series of "what-do-I-have-to-do-next"s, and at the end of their days they are unfulfilled.  Everyone should learn at some point in their lives an effective means of communication and analysis with and of themselves - a way to improve, develop, grow, without outside resources, such that in the absence of all "fertilizer", per se, one continues on one's own personal development.

Obviously, the example here was the buddhist method of mindfulness.  But there are other practices too.