A popular phrase, commonly said, is to connect the dots quickly to make sense of new things that you face. Popular thinking says that if you understand the pattern from past experience, you can better navigate a new situation.
Many times, I find myself revisiting things that I have heard and taken for granted, to see if they still have value. For me, this popular advice has diminished in value because of something far greater that I have learned.
My greatest steps forward in my life, usually occurred a bit by trial and error.
Curious by nature, I tend to be an explorer. Reading things, visiting events, meeting new people, and/or taking small courses in areas that are adjacent to what I am now doing or that I think might be useful to me down the road. Never being sure what I will find when I first start. Or if what I see/hear will be useful to me in any way.
[You see, this part of the process is fuzzy. I don’t go looking for X but rather I am interested in learning more about the alphabet. Never being sure what I will find.]
Bouncing around new knowledge, people, and events has benefited me greatly. Not by themselves, but how over time, I would find a new dot now & then, that I could connect to something either I was doing or aspiring to do in the future.
The magic would then occur when a new dot became a part of my ever evolving life. Connecting it was easy, once it was identified and fit within the context of what I aspired to do.
Never linear, finding dots, is essentially a trial and error process. Sometimes you find something and many times you do not. This journey takes time and work. It’s path is not the easiest one.
Creating your life or expanding/evolving the life you already enjoy, demands that you first find the dots that fit and then integrate them. They never reveal themselves to you on their own. It’s as if they don’t exist until you determine what value they might provide in your specific situation.
Finding the dots, rather than trying to connect them, is a much more effective way to grow and evolve. You just need to be patient along the way for the dots to reveal themselves to you.