Use this moment to water the root of inner wisdom

If you want turn your life into a useful crucible in which to develop wisdom, you have to take responsibility for your own realizations.

And make a place in your future for breakthroughs to happen.

Because the world doesn’t owe us an epiphany any more than it owes us zeroes in our bank account. The onus is on us to listen to what our lives are telling us.

What’s interesting is, sometimes what we think is an epiphany is merely reality. Sometimes what we think is the best thing that ever happened to us is just part of the journey. Sometimes what we think is a eureka lightning strike moment seems quite mundane in hindsight.

Hell, sometimes what we think is a rare moment of clarity is really a ridiculous measure of insanity.

Have you ever made the naive assumption that your own epiphany would also be an epiphany to the first person you told about it, but they looked at you like were nuts? Like you assumed you were the first person to discover internet porn?

This actually happens to me all the time. I never fail to prove to myself just how naive I really am.

Upon make some discovery, people go, wow, you’re just now discovering that? Where have you been for the last thirty years?

Netflix’s founder knew this in the late nineties. Randolph writes in his memoir about one of the most important startups in history that epiphanies are rare, and when they appear in origin stories, they are often over simplified, or just plain false. The truth is usually more complicated. The truth is, that for every good idea, there’s a thousand bad ones, and sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what we call it. Maybe what happens to us is an epiphany, maybe it’s not. The point is how we create the right environment for insight to occur, and the right leverage for insight to grow.

Step one is building a constant stream of data from multiple sources. And not only the ideas we consume, but the people we meet. Those who have the most astounding epiphanies aren’t sitting at their desks all day. They’re out in the world, creating chance encounters with characters who are purveyors of wisdom.

Here are two key questions you might ask yourself to establish this environment, at least from a mental standpoint,

*What do you need to do in this moment to water the root of inner wisdom?
*How can you optimize your return on experience for everything that happens to you?

You’ll find that when walking through the world with that mindset, realizations can’t help come more frequently.

Now, the second step in epiphany management is what happens after those powerful moments. Because all experiences are tools for learning the lessons you are ready for, but you need time to process. It’s simply a matter of reflection.

If you’re not familiar with the personal creativity management tool of encoding, this would be a good time to use it. Encoding is the practice of processing experiences into insights and insights into habits. Each person has to do it differently, based on their own personality, values and lifestyle.

But the benefit of encoding is, you can take action on new learnings immediately. You can clarify what you already know and convert it into motivational energy. Converting the wisdom you receive into being a better and more useful person. And understandably, there is no way to know if your epiphanies are right, save the passage of time.

But there is nobody who lives a prolific life that doesn’t follow them anyway.

If you want breakthroughs to happens, you have to make a place in your future them.

How are you taking responsibility for your own realizations?