What is an opportunity?

Sharing is caring!

What is an opportunity? Would you recognise it if you saw one?

One of the things I honestly believe about living on earth is that we are all free to make our own success. It’s what we are here for and is one of the great things about the law of attraction. The world is literally your ‘oyster’ to coin and old phrase and you can become or create whatever you want. Obviously with that amazing power, comes the ability to make our own failures as well. And in many people’s eyes, we are doing that in abundance. We complain about the lack of this resource or not having enough time; and we moan about this person and that person, waiting for them to change in order for our lives to get better, whilst completely missing the point about our own power in the first place: it is us who needs to change not other people – we have no control over other people, only ourselves. So if we are waiting for other people to change or situations to change in order for us to feel better, we will be waiting literally forever!

One of the things that often affects the way we look at the situations and people in our life is how we view of the world in any particular moment. This ‘glass half full’ or ‘glass half empty’ filter affects the assumptions we make about the particular situation, which then turn will affect both our attitude to it and ultimately the actions we subsequently take.

For example, if you look for the good in things, you will very often find it. But if you always focus on the negative first, you can be sure that you will find that in bucket loads too. In fact, when we only look at all negative things in a particular situation, a ‘bucket’ is dwarfed by the myriad of obstacles and problems we will create in order to substantiate our idea that this situation is not going to work out well for us.

Opportunity knocks – but do we answer?

Truth is, we all have many opportunities cross our path every day in different ways, but whether we see them as opportunities or not is very much down to us.

For example:

• when was the last time you stopped to admire the awesome beauty of a sunrise or were you too stressed at being late that you didn’t even notice?
• did you see there was a perfect mist coming off the river which just looked magical one morning, or were you just annoyed by the dismal fog
• and the last time your child ran up excitedly to show you the work they were so proud of, did you look at it in appreciation or did you dismiss it because you were too busy?

Opportunities to enhance your life are always around, no matter how small but whether you see them or not is up to you. There are literally billions of radio waves that travel through the atmosphere 24/7 from all over the world (and perhaps from beyond). Some of these we tune into and enjoy, like our favourite radio station and others we never even acknowledge. We don’t see or hear them so they pass us by in the blink of an eye. But they were there all the same.

One thing I sometimes wonder is how many times I have walked straight past a potential life partner because at the time, my head was so full of ‘other stuff’ that when they smiled at me, I didn’t even notice. Or how many caring conversations I have missed with people because inside I was so busy with my own worries to notice the pain of another. And what about the countless times my daughter has come to me for comfort because she was anxious about something, and I have mistaken it for disobedience or anger because what I was really seeing was my own exhaustion?

Moments like these happen to everyone, every day and within each, there is the potential to feel inspired, positive and creative. And also the potential to feel overwhelmed, paranoid or trapped in equal measure. There is no good or bad in a situation, the difference rather lies in how we look at the situation, not in the situation itself.

What would your life be like if you could see every opportunity that came your way? What if you could view it as the positive gift that it really was instead of reverting to the fears and doubts that can sometimes overwhelm you? How much more exciting would your life be then?

These are questions we should ask ourselves daily: how would our life experience change it we were not scared to live life to the max – with all the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ that entails – with a ‘this is going to be an exciting ride so bring it on’ attitude?

Your answer might be: “better than it is” and you would undoubtedly be right.

So what can we do to see these wonderful opportunities for what the positive situations they really are?

I’ve put together a short list which may help:

1. Assume that the world is on your side and that in every situation, there is something good and of value to you. After all, you created the situation. Whether you believe that or not is immaterial in the moment, but if you are looking for something good, you are much more likely to find it than if you assume it doesn’t exist in the first place.
2. Smile at the world. Smiling costs nothing yet it can generate a ripple of good feeling that could spread around the globe and it’s infectious. And maybe to your surprise, people may smile back.
3. Look at the situation from a different angle – like the ‘fog’ and the ‘morning mist’ – what in the situation could be beautiful, and what could be an opportunity? Next time you are stuck in a traffic jam for example, instead of feeling frustrated, thing about this as an opportunity to give you extra time to thing clearly and uninterrupted. Let the other drivers raise their stress levels whilst you calmly thing through your day and the opportunities it brings. Or the next time you are ill, see it as your body allowing you time to rejuvenate that you otherwise would possibly not have given yourself.
4. And finally, ask yourself – “what would love do in this situation?” Give yourself a break from beating yourself up and your negative thoughts, and instead, give yourself some love and stand in love’s shoes. Think how ‘unconditional love’ would react to the situation? What would love say? What would love do? I guarantee that you will never go wrong if you follow the path of love.

This is a simple and short list I know. However, they have undoubtedly helped me to look optimistically at my life and that has served me well.

So where will you see your next opportunity? And how will you react?

If you want to find out more about how to always look on the bright side of life, click here, or to see how you can change your view of failing, click here.

And if you were asking the universe for opportunities to change your life and stumbled across this site by accident(*!) click here.

* In law of attraction terms, we don’t believe in coincidences since we believe that the universe brings you what you are asking for!