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Are you seizing opportunities coming your way? Have you ever found yourself in a scenario where you have to make a quick decision? A scenario in which you feel deeply undecided that you postpone choosing for days and feel like you are stuck on that point and can’t make a choice.
If this is the case with you, you have come to the right place.
Recognizing Opportunities
To seize an opportunity, you need to recognize it first. Some opportunities that come your way in life are obvious, while others are hidden. But what does it mean by hidden opportunity, and how can you find it.
Let’s discuss it with an analogy. Imagine a matchbook. If the matchbook properly works, every match can light flames and generate sparks. You don’t see a spark when you see the matchbook, but you recognize its potential to generate the same as you know it is the function of the matchbook. You are aware that it will just take striking the match on the appropriate surface to extract spark from it.
There is a core of value in everything, even in something unpleasant and frustrating. Similarly, everything you experience in life, all the people and every situation, is like the matchbook; they have sparks, which are brought about through your actions. Letting go of any experience as useless is like seeing a functional matchbook and deeming it lacking sparks. It is up to you to look for that hidden spark, which means the hidden opportunity.
Your life is driven by a hidden sequence, richer than you can imagine, with opportunities concealed in every step of your life path. You must uncover and ignite such sparks, connecting the coordinates of the trajectory of your life.
Seizing Opportunities
If you don’t seize the opportunities at the appropriate time, else you will lose them. As said by William Arthur Ward that seizing the opportunity is like catching a sunrise. If you wait for long to catch it, you will lose it. The more you will be prepared and ready, the more you’ll be able to live that moment with profundity and with complete harmony with yourself and the life around you.
Being prepared and ready means being in tune with yourself and focused on the goal you want to achieve. It will lead you to seize the opportunity. It will help you to make the decision whether to go for that particular opportunity or not whatever is right for you.
However, you must be wondering what it means to seize opportunities. It means to:
- Pursue or accept an opportunity with conviction or alacrity
- Make the most of an opportunity when offered one
- Do something with the sized opportunity you want to do
- Act promptly to use the opportunity for your benefit while it’s still available
Importance of Seizing Opportunities
You appreciate them when you look back.
Think about those times when you just got out of your comfort zone and pursued the opportunity. You feel proud to have the opportunities seized on your life’s journey, especially those you had to find for yourself.
It would help if you considered the questions such as what opportunities you have seized are worth it and what made them special.
Opportunities come and go.
Knowing that it may not come back when an opportunity occurs makes you stay aware and vigilant. So, it would help if you were on a constant lookout for great opportunities that you want to benefit from. You must look out for opportunities in your professional life. You must pursue the opportunities that come by it.
You push yourself and grow.
The part of a growth mindset is to believe that learning is essential. Every opportunity makes you learn one thing or the other thing. You will learn a set of new skills with every opportunity that will come your way. When you are not feeling a hundred percent confident that you can do something, but still you go and seize the opportunity, these times are rewarding.
You develop the skills to recognize opportunities for yourself.
Once you evolve the habit of going after the opportunities you want or seeking, you develop a sense of it. You spend a lot of time determining what you want and how you can get it. You select criteria for the opportunities you want to pursue so that you can capture them as soon as they come your way. Besides, it tells you about yourself, what you have learned and what else you can learn.
Setting a good example for yourself.
Remind yourself that your actions are bigger than yourself and serve as your legacy. You can learn many lessons that you would like to pass on to your progeny, people around you, and the future generations to come. So, don’t wait for things to happen, as you may wait forever. Just pursue what comes your way and make the most of it to fulfill your desires. Leave your legacy behind and pass down the lessons you have learned to the next generation.
How to Seize Your Opportunities?
Be Clear of What You Want
Suppose you could have anything that your heart wants. Suppose you could seize the opportunity of one’s time the moment it presents itself. Just take a moment out and imagine having it all. If you do, you will be waking up, which can be the difference between living a life of quiet desperation and achieving your dreams.
When you focus on the project you are planning to watch, the meeting you are about to go into, the vacation you are going to take, or something else, that focus leads you to thought patterns and creates ideas you would have had in the first place. Even your body’s physiology will respond to an image in your mind as it was real.
Your brain has a gateway to your conscious awareness. That acts as the switch that helps turn on your perceptions of data and ideas. It wakes you if you hear a little noise in another room but keeps you asleep even when music is playing.
Just like your computer, your brain also has a search function, even a better one. It is programmed by what you want to focus on, what you relate with, and what you believe in. It notices opportunities and things that are your focus and current beliefs. For instance, if you are a shoe salesman, you will probably notice the degree of craftsmanship and the details of a persons’ shoes when you meet them.
Close your eyes, take a moment for ten seconds, focus on nothing but the color black, and then check around. If there is anything in black at all, even if it’s a little thing, you will notice it. This is how your brain works. You will need to keep that part of your brain sharp and functional if you want to seize potential opportunities as they come your way.
Thus, you must develop a clear mental image of your desires and what you want. Keep the vision in your mind and imagine it regularly. It will make your mind stay on alert and look out for the opportunities that can help bring your vision into reality.
Set Goals
Once you have the vision of what you want and what an ideal opportunity may look like, it is time to write that mental image to paper. So, to achieve the goals, they must be:
- Defined: Goal must be clear.
- Measurable: You should be able to measure the progress.
- Relevant: If achieving a goal makes you happier, more successful, and helps lead a healthy life, it is relevant for you.
- Attainable: Goals must be realistic, and you should have everything you require to achieve them.
- Time-based: All goals must come with an end date as it gives you a deadline and sense of urgency.
Many organizations use these criteria to achieve their objectives, which works well for them. Once the goals are set, you will want to ensure that you can review them from time to time to remind your brain what you are looking for. When you give your brain a clear goal to achieve, it begins to look for ways automatically to help you achieve it.
Besides, after you set goals, your brain searches for various opportunities to help you bring them to reality. It looks for ideas you can have or actions you can take to help you achieve the specific goal.
Take Actions Consistently
Some people believe that positive thinking is the main thing to seize opportunities and get whatever you desire in life. But, that is not the case. It does not matter whatever positive thoughts you think unless you get a map for yourself to help you guide, you will be lost. Suppose you are lost in the forest without a map to help you get back where you want to be.
You have to update your approach and take action. If you want to achieve your goals, attract the perfect partner, get the dream job, or seize the opportunity of your lifetime. It won’t matter if you think positively if your way is faulty. You need to envision a detailed result of what you want to fix your thinking. Once you do that, you have to take well-planned actions towards them.
You will keep bypassing great opportunities unless you figure out a detailed image of what you want and combine that with action,
Conclusion
At the end of this article, if you think whether all these points are required to become confident and knowledgeable about seizing the opportunities, it is a great start. You will learn to refine your life’s approach gradually. Things seem complicated, but all it needs is just a change in attitude, confident mindset, and action to change your life for good.