DAY
29
“While we stop to think, we often miss our opportunity.”
— Publilius Syrus
We’ve been talking for the last several days about opportunity, and the one thing that keeps popping to the surface is living in the here and now and taking advantage of what is before you. Opportunity is strongly linked to living in the present rather than regretting the past or worrying about the future. You must act when opportunity shows up, and you can’t take action if you are not paying attention.
The quote above from the 1st century B.C. shows just how long humans have been looking for opportunity and finding the best ways to capture it. Grabbing opportunity has more to do with instinct and less to do with thinking. It’s a gut reaction to something new and exciting and potentially noteworthy.
Many of us tend to think of opportunity in business terms: a new job opportunity, an opportunity to make more money, an opportunity to show your boss what you’re worth. Opportunity also takes other forms. A random call from your mother may be an opportunity for you to tell her you love her. A solicitation from your favorite charity in the mail may be an opportunity for you to give back to your community.
Your assignment today is to look back through the previous week and list times when you have missed an opportunity. Journal for about fifteen minutes or so about why you didn’t grab on to those opportunities and what you could do in the future to make a different choice.
DAY
30
“A missed opportunity is worse than a defeat.”
— Anonymous
This is the last day in our miniseries on opportunity, and it’s a sobering quote. Can missed opportunity really be worse than a defeat? Yes, it can! When you miss an opportunity, you didn’t even bother to show up for the game. It’s not as if you made an attempt and lost. You didn’t play.
It is worse than defeat, because you have no idea if you might have won. Every opportunity is a chance for success, and you can’t win if you don’t play. Are you in the game? Or are you standing on the sidelines watching the players go back and forth, never taking part in the action yourself?
It is risky to act when you see an opportunity, but you will never move forward if you don’t get in the game. You cannot obtain success if you do not grab onto opportunity. If you latch on to an opportunity and fail, you actually have achieved a certain amount of success. You know for certain what doesn’t work, and you can explore other options. If you miss the opportunity, you are left with nothing.
You may think it’s safer to stay away from opportunity, but when you do not participate in life, that, too, is a choice. You are making a decision not to grow and learn and stretch yourself. You are actively choosing not to achieve success when you let opportunity slip by. That’s not safe at all.
Your assignment today is to get in the game! Don’t miss an opportunity when you see one.
DAY
31
“If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.”
— Barack Obama
Are you on the right path? Is your life filled with activities that help you and others to flourish, or do you tend to partake in behaviors that send you on a detour away from success? If you are completely honest with yourself, you will know the answer.
You know intuitively if you are on the right or wrong path. You are aware at some level of whether or not you engage in behavior that is healthy mentally and physically, or unhealthy. When you are headed down the wrong path, and you know it, you might want to think about why you chose that road. Do you gain some amount of comfort from not living up to your potential? Why did you choose to be where you are? You do not have the luxury of saying it’s not your fault. You are not a victim. You choose every step of your journey.
Sometimes the more difficult task is to stay on the right path once you’ve found it. You may have an inkling you’re headed in the right direction, but you’re not getting the results you would like quickly enough.
That’s where patience comes in. You must be willing to keep walking, even if you don’t reap rewards immediately. You are in control of the path you choose, but you can’t mandate the amount of time it will take you to reach success. However, if you are on the right path, you will eventually make progress. You will find success.
Your assignment today is to take a look at your path. Are you on the right path or the wrong path? Are you getting impatient?
DAY
32
“My little [note]books were beginnings—they were the ground into which I dropped the seed . . . I would work in this way when I was out in the crowds, then put the stuff together at home.”
— Walt Whitman
Your very first assignment was to get a notebook. You may have discovered by now that having a notebook with you at all times can be extremely handy. Numerous successful individuals keep a notebook with them to jot down their ideas whenever they think of them. Do you keep your notebook handy? That is your assignment today.
Why? There is one very good reason: you never know when inspiration will hit. Walt Whitman was a wonderful observer, and he found many seeds of creative inspiration when he was out and about. He didn’t want to forget his best ideas by the time he returned home. Inspiration is a fleeting thing. It is front and center in your mind at one moment, and then the next minute it vanishes.
You may take a walk on a beautifully crisp blue morning and witness a hawk flying against the bright sky. The scene inspires you to write down a few lines. Those lines may become a poem, a song, or a new advertising campaign. They may even motivate you to use similar colors when you remodel your living room. Who knows?
The words Walt Whitman jotted down were beginnings. He recorded scraps of ideas and then put them together and worked on them more carefully at home. The notebook was a net to catch all of the ideas that floated to the surface. Walt Whitman did not judge the ideas he wrote down in his notebook. He knew they weren’t the final product. They were the ground into which he dropped the seed.
DAY
33
“My first notebook was a Big Five tablet, given to me [at age five] by my mother with the sensible suggestions that I stop whining and learn to amuse myself by writing down my thoughts.”
— Joan Didion
Joan Didion’s mother was no dummy. Her “no whining” attitude laid the groundwork for a great American writer. Joan Didion is yet another example of using a notebook as a tool for success.