Not long ago, I asked someone when they last had an “ah-ha” moment. They paused, thought about it, frowned a little, and eventually admitted they couldn’t remember. Not one. Meanwhile, I seem to have them almost every day. That contrast stayed with me, not as a boast, but as a clue. Epiphanies aren’t random lightning strikes—they show up more frequently when you build the conditions for them.

I didn’t always live this way. Until my thirties, I was competent, busy, productive… and strangely static. I was learning things here and there, of course, but I wasn’t really evolving. Then, in my forties, something shifted. The catalyst was a random decision to pick up Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Oddly enough, the epiphany wasn’t about the book’s content. It was the uncomfortable realisation that I had stopped developing myself. I’d effectively plateaued without noticing.

That moment was the spark. Since then, I’ve pursued continuous improvement with a level of intent I’d never applied before. Call it growth, call it curiosity, or borrow Maslow’s term and call it self-actualisation—whatever the label, the effect has been the same: an increase in both learning and the frequency of those unmistakable “something just clicked” moments.

These days, I read widely, research compulsively, and spend a surprising amount of time in contemplation and investigation. It isn’t academic for its own sake; it’s more like exploring an internal landscape that keeps revealing new terrain. And as I’ve dug into cognitive science, motivational theory, economics, and pretty much anything else that hooks my interest, I’ve noticed a pattern. When you explore ideas consistently, when you let questions simmer, when you sit with your own mind and let it wander with purpose, the epiphanies start to gather momentum.

It helps enormously that we’re living in the best of times for this kind of exploration. We have instant access to more information than any generation before us. Of course, it’s also the worst of times: for every insightful lecture, there’s an endless stream of pointless content designed to dull us into imbeciles. If you’ve ever found yourself watching a video of a fifteen-year-old playing Minecraft while his mum quietly hoovers behind him, you know exactly what I mean.

But if you sift through the dross—ignore the digital noise and the algorithmic bait—what remains is astonishing. We live in an era where you can listen to a Nobel laureate summarise a lifetime of work in fifteen minutes. You can dive into a TED talk on a topic you didn’t even know existed an hour ago. You can access books, research, lectures, debates, and ideas from the best minds on the planet, all for free or close to it. These are the rabbit holes I follow, and they’re often the start of my epiphanies.

Some insights are gentle. You connect two ideas you’ve encountered months apart and suddenly see the link. Others feel like someone has switched on hidden lights in a previously familiar room. And a few are far stranger.

A while back, I had what Zen calls a kenshō moment—an awakening. It wasn’t just an intellectual “yes, that makes sense now.” It came with a shift in how my mind actually perceived the world. A literal sensory shift. Colours, depth, sound, even the way the environment felt—all of it sharpened or reorganised itself, as if some internal mechanism had upgraded without asking permission. I’ve had a couple of these experiences before, and they sit in a different category from ordinary insights. They aren’t thoughts; they are shifts in perception itself.

The Buddhist advice in situations like this is straightforward: don’t get carried away. Sensations are sensations—pleasant, curious, or unusual, but still just part of experience. They come and go. So, I stay grounded.

But the bigger point remains: epiphanies—whether mild or profound—don’t arrive because you’re lucky. They arrive because you’ve primed your mind to connect ideas, question assumptions, and work quietly in the background. When you develop a habit of learning, contemplation, and inquiry, your brain starts weaving together patterns that were previously invisible.

If you haven’t had an epiphany in a while, it’s not a personal failing. It may simply be that your mental inputs aren’t varied or challenging enough. If your days run on the same tracks, if you’re not exposing yourself to new ideas or perspectives, if you’re not taking time to think about thinking, you don’t give your mind much raw material to work with.

Epiphanies thrive on three things: interest, investigation, and time. Not more time—structured time. Time to read widely. Time to question. Time to sit in quiet contemplation, even if it’s only a few minutes. Time to let the mind wander and explore without immediately coming back to the to-do list.

The more attention you give to how things work—how you work—the more ideas start to collide and form new shapes. Eventually, those “out of nowhere” moments appear… only they aren’t out of nowhere at all. I like to think that having epiphanies is a skill, and that you need to practice to get any good!

So, to those who feel they’ve already sorted out the whole “life thing,” a gentle reminder: maybe you haven’t, and that’s perfectly fine. In fact, it’s exciting. Curiosity is far more energising than certainty, and continuous improvement is far more engaging than believing the journey is complete. If you’re not having epiphanies, it might simply mean you’re due to shake up the way you explore your world.

Your next “ah-ha” moment might be just one quiet question—and one rabbit hole—away.