I had never heard of the adjacent possible before last week. I heard about it the day after I had been describing the concept to someone without knowing it for what it was.
The idea behind the adjacent possible (as I heard it) is that certain things only become possible because of the circumstances and environment surrounding you at a particular moment of time. My personal example was developing applications for mobile phones using rich content nearly ten years before there was the required ‘adjacent possible’. We had the ideas, and the content, and the consumer need - but we didn’t have was the adjacent possible of the iPhone and the App Store! We were waaay too early!
Researching the concept informs me that this concept is mostly used in describing biological systems but I think it can be a really useful concept in any endeavour.
Consider your goals right now. Do you have the requisite adjacent possible to achieve those goals?
“What needs to be in place for you to succeed?”
Sometimes we can be convinced that we can achieve anything if we want it enough. However, we might make much better choices and expend a lot less effort if we check out the current status of our adjacent possible...
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