How does "Cultivate the slow hunch: let ideas develop over months, not hours" work?

Johnson argues that most breakthrough ideas are slow hunches — incomplete intuitions that require months or years of adjacent development before they become actionable. Premature action on a partial idea collapses it to what is already known, preventing the accretion of adjacent concepts that would have made it genuinely new. Keeping a slow hunch in a notebook or running document allows it to absorb new connections without being committed to prematurely.

How does "Build a liquid network: expose yourself to people at the edge of different fields" work?

Johnson draws on network science to argue that innovation flourishes in "liquid networks" — environments dense enough in connections to allow collision between ideas, but not so rigid that everyone already knows what everyone else knows. Homogeneous networks (people with the same training, reading the same things) recirculate existing combinations; heterogeneous networks introduce the adjacent-field elements that make genuinely new combinations possible.

How does "Exaptation: look for how a tool or skill in one context could serve a different one" work?

Exaptation, borrowed from evolutionary biology, refers to the repurposing of a structure or feature for a function it was not originally selected for — feathers evolved for thermoregulation before they enabled flight. Johnson argues that many innovations are exaptive: a solution in one domain gets repurposed for a different adjacent problem. Deliberately scanning existing assets for exaptive potential widens the adjacent possible without requiring new resources.

How does "Treat errors as adjacent-possible expansion events" work?

Johnson argues that serendipitous discoveries often originate in errors — unexpected results that reveal a new adjacent possible not anticipated in the original plan. This only produces value if the explorer stays curious about the error rather than discarding it as noise. Framing errors as information, rather than failure, is what makes the adjacent expansion happen. Most errors contain a latent map of what the original plan did not account for.

How does "Platform thinking: build capabilities that enable many futures rather than optimizing for one" work?

A platform is a substrate that enables many different futures rather than a single anticipated one — the internet is a platform; a specific website is not. At the personal level, platform capabilities (broad coding skill, fluency in a widely spoken language, a habit of clear writing) expand the adjacent possible in multiple directions, while narrow optimizations shrink it to the one scenario they were designed for. Investing in platform capabilities is a hedge against uncertainty: the specific future becomes less critical when the underlying platform is strong.

Steven Johnson

What is the adjacent possible and how do you use it to unlock creative and personal growth?

Why the best next move is rarely a leap — and how to find the edge of what is possible for you

Short answer

The adjacent possible, a concept from complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman and popularized by Steven Johnson in Where Good Ideas Come From, describes the set of next steps that are accessible from where you currently stand — not all future possibilities, only those one move away. In practice, it reframes innovation and personal development as disciplined boundary-expansion rather than heroic leaps: each new position opens a new adjacent possible that was not reachable before.

Stuart Kauffman coined "adjacent possible" in the context of biological evolution: at any moment, the space of what can happen next is constrained by what already exists, and each realized step expands the set of what is newly reachable. Steven Johnson borrowed the idea in Where Good Ideas Come From (2010) to explain why breakthrough innovations so consistently arrive in clusters — they become possible only once adjacent ideas are in place. The concept applies equally to personal development: your adjacent possible is the ring of achievable next steps just beyond your current position, and the discipline is expanding it deliberately rather than waiting for a lucky leap.

The practices (6)

Why it works

People habitually plan by imagining a desired end state and working backward, which often produces plans that skip over steps that are not yet accessible from the current position. Mapping the adjacent possible reverses this: it starts with existing assets (skills, relationships, knowledge, resources) and asks what is reachable from them, which surfaces a more realistic and executable set of next moves than goal-backward planning.

How to do it

1Write down what you currently have: skills you can use today, people you can contact, resources available right now.
2For each asset, ask: "What becomes possible that was not possible before, because I have this?"
3List only genuine next steps — actions you could start this week with what you already have.
4Choose the one adjacent step that opens the most new possibilities in the next ring.

Evidence

Observational

Action-oriented goal-setting that begins from current capabilities (effectuation) is associated with better entrepreneurial outcomes than goal-backward planning; the adjacent-possible frame is a version of effectual logic applied to personal development.

Honest caveat: Effectuation research is primarily in entrepreneurship contexts; the adjacent-possible framing is an informal application of the principle to personal growth, not a separately studied approach.

— Sarasvathy (2001), causation and effectuation, Academy of Management Review

Common mistake: Listing what you wish you had ("if only I had capital / a network / credentials…") instead of what you actually have — the adjacent possible is defined by current reality, not desired future reality.

Go deeper on this practice →

Practice this with IX Coach

Reading about a practice changes nothing on its own. IX Coach turns these into a guided, adaptive routine — discerning where you are in real time and walking the practice with you, session after session.

Start with IX Coach →