To be frank I spent most of my life without even considering this is a skill. Most of the time this was happening naturally - seeing the situation, figuring out the details and making some predictions. Usually - negative ones. From one side - it helps to avoid many problems. On the other - it’s curse, because people don’t want to think about future where something bad happens. And this ability reserve role of pessimistic critics in the eyes of other people.
First of all - the pattern recognition mechanism does not come from nowhere. Often people who are good and great at it were conditioned to become experts in this field from the childhood. The stories behind this skill are not nice, because this is survival mechanism. Reading and understanding environment before things happens requires a lot of effort. While our brain and body avoid unnecessary effort - survival is always a priority.
How this skill looks like? Well, it’s like taking a clean paper, drawing dots that represents what you know. Than you figure out new details by observing and listening carefully. And then you put those dots on the paper as well. Then you connect dots. What you get is a vector. And you can tell for sure the direction of it.
On the bright side - ability to influence environment and change the trajectory is a huge change. Because every next dot may influence the vector drastically, completely changing the results of the situation. And this is the bright and powerful side of the skill. At some point it might feel like a skill of predicting the future. But I advice against imagining it’s a skill that let’s you avoid mistakes. An attempt to do so may lead to a chain of issues and otherwise unhealthy situations. There is always a place for a mistake, missed predictions and misunderstanding.
One more thing on the bright side - this is actually a super power. But you must know it must be surrounded with proper context. Without self-awareness and strong self-believe it is impossible to utilize this power effectively. It’s easier to ignore and relay on others opinion and “don’t be pessimistic” rather then trust your own gut feelings and sharp mind. When approached correctly - this skill may become a core of anyone, who’s interested to transform the world.
One more thing to mention - despite we are living in the era of AI - it does not make this skill obsolete. I would say AI tools are rather amplifiers. It can validate feelings fast, it can provide additional context, gather data. The most important thing - never trust AI to make a decision. Trust your heart.