How Many Opportunities Do You Really Have?

Opportunities are fickle. It’s challenging to ascertain how to retrieve the right opportunities and what really is the right opportunity. We naturally want to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. Sometimes these end up being beneficial, others not. Sometimes we think we made the right decision and after a while, circumstances change and we realize we may not have.

In today’s world, there are plenty of opportunities to choose from. Some of us have more than others. We may have the chance to work on a cool project, or interact with a famous celebrity, or even have the chance to be a part of a special networking event. When this does happen, we often associate those occurrences as a result of “being lucky” even though that isn’t 100% the case.

So let’s think of a different perspective.

You had the chance to work on that really cool project not because of sheer luck, but because you were explaining to someone senior what you had been working on. In return, they wanted to extend an offer to a new project.

You had the chance to meet that famous celebrity not because they were at the coffee shop, but you were also there and they just happened to be sitting a few tables away.

You had the opportunity to be a part of a special networking event not because you knew a person but because you had fostered a relationship with them and they know the people running it.

In all those scenarios, you acted and later received a benefit. There was some effort by you to do some sort of action.

Opportunity is a combination of both luck and effort.

However, opportunity you want doesn’t always just occur because you did something. It takes some time. You could be extremely lucky one day and you could be extremely unlucky the next. But it depends on the actions that you take to get that level of luck or even have a chance for that luck. That’s what’s fascinating.

Let’s say you want to be a writer and you want to be a recognized leader in a certain topic. You could write and publish occasionally on places like Facebook. Sure, you’ll get some level of engagement and get noticed by your peers, but that won’t often lead to much, if anything.

However, let’s say you were more deliberate about your actions and created a plan to write about certain topics at certain times and post them on certain platforms. For example, maybe you’ll post on your own website, social media, LinkedIn, and Medium all while tagging influential individuals who are large enough to be well connected but also small enough to read your content. On top of that, you regularly engage with those influencers and their content. Though initially you won’t see much success, you’ll eventually come across someone who will provide you with some value. By putting in deliberate effort, you increased your chances for success.

Opportunity is not just being at the right place at the right time…but it’s doing the right thing at the right place at the right time. This additional layer of complexity is vital to understand.

When you think of all those famous leaders and celebrities you see on the news and the internet, you have to realize they all had this. What are the odds that they got to where they are because of pure talent?

Very low. Very. Very low.

All of those people are clearly very smart and talented in their respective fields. But they’re not necessarily always the best. Unless you’re Elon Musk..then you’re clearly just awesome. However, generally, there’s always someone smarter or better at something but just wasn’t provided the opportunity or didn’t demonstrate their worth well enough. The influencers you see? They worked hard and made their knowledge known. They were deliberate in their actions and put the effort into ensuring that they received value and made the right moves. Not everyone gets the recognition that they may want in life.

So the next question is, how do I do this? How does one change and what does this require?

Let’s say you have a chart for the moments in which you provided value of some sort throughout the past year. Those moments are represented through spikes. However, let’s say you also get the chance to see all of the opportunities you could have had and had. Those are presented as circles. What you may notice is that there were tons of opportunities for a variety of things…but you just weren’t present.

Getting the opportunity you want requires a level of deliberation. Whether that’s going out and meeting people so you can build your professional network, or trying out new activities so that you can find and make new friends. It’s all on you to be deliberate…because the opportunities are there.

There are opportunities out there for just about everything but you must understand what it is that you want. You have the option to pursue any multitude of opportunities however it doesn’t make sense if those opportunities don’t align with what you want. You must first start with why you want to even put in the effort and provide value in a certain away. What are you trying to achieve from the effort that is put in?

Goal making is challenging however it must be done so that you are able to make some incremental — but valuable — progress. Whether the plan includes posting on a regular schedule or writing about certain topics, write everything down and understand what you want to accomplish by when. This will also ensure that you feel proud of what you do and feel like you are achieving something. Finally, track your engagements with others. Understand who is interacting with you and who you are interacting with. Tracking this progress will make you feel like you have an impact and will overall provide you with motivation to continue to push forward.

If you’re looking at your life and realize that you haven’t had many opportunities, maybe it’s time for you to refocus and better understand what it is that you want to do to add value to the lives of other people. By understanding that opportunity isn’t just dependent on luck but also dependent on effort, you can find more chances that you can create opportunities to receive opportunities.

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