How Hindsight Helps with Foresight (and Why Reflecting on the Path of Your Experiences is Useful)

Steve Jobs once said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

What are your dots? How do they connect in hindsight?

You may be like me and still gathering dots, but it’s a useful exercise to pause and reflect on the dots you’ve gathered. See if there’s a pattern or meaning to be derived from the path.

For example, here are some of my dots, in chronological order - (starting in my teens to now):

• Skateboarding, BMX, dirtbikes, hunting
• Binaural beats, philosophy, psychology
• Skydiving, travel, flow states, psychedelics, neuroscience
• Cannabis, business, entrepreneurship, web design, no code
• Email marketing, newsletters, community building, writing online
  

While the connections don’t jump out at me yet, the exercise increases my chances of connecting the dots by simply having them out in front of me to contemplate.

The purpose of connecting the dots, ultimately, is to find meaning. 

To make sense of your journey. To discover what your curiosities are telling you. To see the story of your soul.

It’s not about ‘finding your purpose’. So many people get lost with that. It’s a myth. We’re too complex for such a single thing.