Have you had a Eureka moment?

Have you had moments in your property investing career where all the pieces fell into place?

Where you suddenly felt like you’d grasped what the market is trying to teach you?

I thought it may be a good idea to have a look at these moments of startling clarity and to see if there is anything we can learn from these Eureka moments.

Is there anything we can do to encourage them to occur just a little more frequently in our everyday lives?

We all know how it feels when we reach a moment of discovery, and all we had been trying to comprehend is suddenly within our reach.

This ‘aha!’ moment makes us feel clever, jubilant, and in charge of our destiny.

It is usually accompanied by a big endorphin hit, which is our body’s natural happy drug.

No wonder we enjoy it so much when the penny drops.

Generally, for some time before we gain insight, we feel frustrated, cranky and sometimes, like a bit of a failure.

That’s actually got a name – it’s called the Kafka effect. 

It’s when we spend time going over and over old ground, willing ourselves to understand, and experiencing self-doubt.

Some psychologists believe that it is this abyss of annoyance that helps to produce the Eureka moment.

Our subconscious is pushed to restructure the problem and see the issue through new eyes.

Suddenly, possibilities emerge.

Interestingly, just prior to the moment of insight, test subjects often feel just as much in the dark as when they started the exercise.

Understanding may be just around the corner, so persist, and it may all become clear sooner than you think.

Brain Activity

Several cognitive processes are at work here.

In general, the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for the conscious processing of speech (among other things), and the right is involved with creative insights and subconscious processing.

When achieving an ‘aha’ moment, cognitive neuroscientists have been able to track this using electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging, as well as a variety of psychological tests.

Apparently, we will only experience a Eureka moment when the right hemisphere has processed the information and provided an insight, and transmitted this information to the left side so the solution can be put into discernible terms.

So, if you’re in the abyss at the moment, and all you’re seeing is fog – hang on in there.

Your Eureka moment might be just around the corner.