Most People Miss About Opportunity

I've heard it before...

"All I need is an opportunity, and I will..."

Fill in the blank.

So many people are just waiting or looking for their opportunity...

To do what they want to do...

To live the life they want to life...

To create the impact they hope to create.

Yet...

How many actually get the opportunity they are looking for?

The answer is...

Very few.

But why is this?

The answer is that most people really do not understand what opportunity is...

How it works...

And the result is that they are never offered the opportunities they hope for...

Or when they are offered opportunities...

It slips through their fingers like sand.

So what is it that most people are missing?

I tend to find a few categories of where people go wrong when it comes to opportunity.

The first is that they believe that opportunity can only be given.

This is usually why they are "waiting" for the opportunity...

It is passive and requires others to "give" them permission.

But here is the problem...

If no one ever "sees" how you handle opportunity...

Why would anyone give you an opportunity?

They do not know what to expect of you...

Maybe you could be amazing...

But based on the current evidence, it is equally likely that you could be a train-wreck waiting to happen.

When you think about people giving opportunities...

The act of "giving" an opportunity is a risk.

In psychophysiology...

When humans are faced with unknown variables...

The safest appearing option is usually the one they go with.

When your ability to handle opportunities is unknown...

The safest option is not to give you an opportunity.

If this is the case...

How do you get an opportunity?

It begins by you needing to "create" your own opportunities.

Start small.

Start with what you have.

Demonstrate what you "can" do with an opportunity.

When you do this...

You now have "proof" of how you can handle opportunity...

Which makes it more likely for people to see where your potential might be...

Therefore, reducing their risk of giving you an opportunity.

You will never be handed opportunities until you can prove what you can do with opportunity...

And you can only get that by making an opportunity yourself.

Yes, opportunities can be given...

But you need to start by creating opportunities.

The next area I see where people have challenges is after they fail to get the opportunity they wanted...

Or they miss an opportunity that, in hindsight, would have been great.

This happens to everyone.

Even when things appear to be on track and perfect...

Sometimes those opportunities can fail to pan out.

I just had this happen recently in my own life.

I had what looked like an amazing, solid opportunity...

Everything was appearing to be on track...

Then suddenly...

Without a word...

Disappeared.

Gone.

I was not even sure what happened.

This is not the first time it has happened to me...

It likely will not be the last time.

It happens to everyone.

But where most people go wrong...

Is that they linger on their failed or missed opportunity.

They sit in their feelings of loss and hopelessness...

For weeks...

Months...

Even years.

But here is the problem...

If there was one opportunity...

There will always be more.

The world is changing constantly...

One opportunity fades...

Another is born.

But if you are only focused on what you have lost...

You will fail to see any other opportunities.

The more you focus on what you have lost...

The more opportunities you will miss.

As for me...

I just had a brand new opportunity come my way...

Why?

I was not focused on what I lost...

I was focused on what comes next.

Do not linger on the past...

Learn from it...

But do not allow it to consume you.

The final area where I see so many people end up failing...

Is that they fail to find creative ways to see the opportunities that are given.

See...

Sometimes the opportunities we want...

Are not yet available to us.

This can happen for a variety of reasons.

We have not demonstrated our ability to handle opportunities at a large enough scale...

The timing is wrong based on a variety of factors...

Like if I were to have attempted to open up a sit-down restaurant during the pandemic, the timing would not have worked well...

The opportunity we want most is just not available due to budgets or because they are currently filled...

There are all sorts of reasons that the opportunities we want are not there.

But...

That does not mean that there are "no" opportunities.

And more importantly...

Just because an opportunity does not look exactly like what you want...

Does not mean that there is no value in the opportunity.

See...

I have seen many people miss amazing opportunities...

Because it was not "what they were looking for".

Sometimes the question is not whether the opportunity is what you are looking for...

It is a question of whether you are creative enough to use that opportunity as a launching point into other things.

Sometimes an opportunity can allow you to develop a certain skill...

Sometimes an opportunity provides exposure...

Sometimes an opportunity can create relationships...

All of which have tremendously higher value than most people realize.

Value that people take for granted...

Value that is lost because it "doesn't look right".

Here is something that I have learned...

If you get creative with the opportunities presented...

It becomes the launchpad for more opportunities...

And when you do well with those...

Suddenly...

You have more opportunity than you know what to do with...

Sometimes, even greater opportunity than you had originally thought possible...

And then you can afford to become more picky with the ones that you want.

Why?

Because so few people fall into these traps.

The vast majority of people...

Do not create opportunities...

Linger on the few they miss or fail at...

And refuse so many opportunities for "not looking right"...

That the few people who do these things...

Create their own opportunities...

Continue forth whenever they miss or fail...

And turn unlikely opportunities into something spectacular...

That they become too valuable for others to pass up.

People will want you...

And will try to get you...

Even if they know there is no chance you will take them up on their opportunities.

All because you have done what so few people actually do...

Understood how opportunity works.

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