Happy August! This month’s ritual theme is: Sharing Discoveries

Every month, everyone here at Team EVO participates in what we call our Monthly Rituals. Each Ritual has a theme designed to help us learn something, grow, or become the best version of ourselves.

Let’s talk about this “Sharing Discoveries” thing… This also happens to be a key part of what Alchemists need to thrive. But even if you’re not an Alchemist, sharing your discoveries is an important part of life…

First, let’s take a minute to understand what I mean by “discoveries”… This is an intentionally broad term that we  use to describe the information that we, as humans (especially Alchemists!) collect. Whether it’s a new fact you learned, a wikipedia hole you fell into, a new person you’re getting to know, a movie you saw, an article you read, a photograph, or just some kind of insight you gained… Discovering—or collecting or learning—new information is an important part of what sets us humans apart from other mammals.

When you discover something new, there’s a high chance that that information will spark something in you… An idea, a concept, or perhaps an epiphany… But how often do we take that spark and actually do something with it?

You could call that “doing” process many things—output, creation, convincing your imagination to put out… But we’ve chosen to call it “sharing discoveries.” 

(Side note: If you’ve been a part of our online community, the Project EVO Collective, for a while, it’s likely you helped us come up with this phrase, so thank you!)

When the process of seeking out and discovering leads to the process of sharing and creation, that starts a really good cycle of intake and output of information. It’s a similar concept to taking in nutrition and eliminating the stuff our bodies don’t use. 

“But why is sharing our discoveries so important, Iris?” you ask. Well, if all we do is take in more and more information without doing anything with it, we can start to feel *ahem* creatively… constipated. 

And before you argue that you aren’t creative, consider this: all humans are creative by our very nature. Take a quick glance around you, and I can guarantee that most of what you’ll be looking at was created in some form or fashion by humans. We love to build, experiment, and craft things to help make our lives easier, yes, but also, we often create just for the sheer joy of the creative process itself. 

Whether you’re inspired to invent a board game, write a poem, form a snazzy new outfit, put together a hilarious meme, or come up with a brilliant new slogan for a client—you are a creative being. Whether or not you consider yourself “artistic” has nothing to do with it. 

(I’ve heard so many people deny that they are creative simply because they don’t see themselves as an artist, so I feel this is an important distinction!)

I believe many people feel dissatisfied with their life because they aren’t sharing their discoveries with the world. It’s completely understandable why we don’t do anything with our spark of inspiration… Taking in information is a passive process. By reading this article right now, you’re doing it. It requires very little effort… And with the invention of the internet, there is more information for us to consume, and easier ways to consume it, than ever before.

In fact, if you could have all your practical needs met automatically, you could probably just spend your entire life in a room with just a computer that has internet access, discovering things. Consuming new information. You’d never run out of things to learn.

It’d be fun for a while, sure. Especially if you have tons of responsibilities on your plate and not much free time to spend discovering right now. But eventually—whether it took a day, a month, or a couple of years (for the severely introverted and spare-time-deprived among us 😉 )—you would reach a point where you would feel an overwhelming compulsion to do something with all that knowledge (even if all you did was talk to a friend about your experience 😉 ). It’s practically built into our DNA.

(Why do you think social media is so popular? It’s essentially a fast track built to share our discoveries with one tap of the screen!)

So this month, use this ritual as a reminder to pay special attention to that spark of inspiration in you. Don’t just daydream about “one day” being able to “find the time” to share your discoveries—write that idea down, schedule time on your calendar this week, and make it happen!

If you can make this month’s ritual into a habit… If you could actually work on at least one idea every week—imagine how much happier and fulfilled you could be!

And the good news is, you already have the power to do it. 🙂

Do you have any questions, or suggestions for future blog posts? Email them to me at hello@bta.projectevo.org, or hit me up on Instagram!