Opportunity exists everywhere in life. Learning how to take advantage of opportunities is one of the most essential skills you can develop.
From your career, to investing your money, to figuring out what’s for dinner, you can find opportunities in everything.
When you find opportunities that are worth it to you, commit to them properly to make the most of their potential rewards.
Welcome back to the Investing Series – my thoughts on how to invest your time, money, and effort; why we need to invest; and what we must overcome through our investing efforts.
Today’s focus is opportunity – finding ways to capitalise on advantages you come across in life.
Seizing opportunities is an essential aspect of life. If overlooked, it can result in your journey towards your Life’s Work taking longer than you expect.
What is Opportunity?
An opportunity is a specific set of circumstances or events that results in something particular happening. Opportunity is usually used to describe an event occurring that has a chance of success.
Opportunities are what allow you to reach the next step on your journey. This could be a job or promotion opening, a business deal, or even a sale on a certain product.
You have to commit yourself to pursuing the opportunity in order for it to amount to anything substantial.
A discount on your favourite product will disappear if you don’t use it. A job opportunity unpursued is worthless. Opportunities are ephemeral – blink and you’ll miss them.
Opportunities demand investment – in time, money, or effort. Often all of these at once. Commit to opportunities or watch them pass you by.
How to Take Advantage of Opportunities
Opportunities can be found in just about any form, and they’re often unexpected. After all, if opportunities for growth or profit were easy to come by, everybody would have enough or be better off. And we know that that’s not the case.
Therefore, being able to seize opportunities is just as important as spotting them in the first place.
A company being undervalued may create a good opportunity to invest your money. However, if you don’t have the funds necessary to buy shares, then the opportunity will disappear. The market will discover that the company is undervalued just as you did, and drive up the price to a more accurate value.
There are a few traits I believe are necessary to take advantage of opportunities efficiently:
- Clarity – research the opportunity thoroughly and make an informed decision on how you want to approach it. Ensure you have a clear picture of what the opportunity requires before continuing.
- Agility – be ready to pursue new opportunities as soon as they become known to you. Ensure you move quickly enough that the opportunity doesn’t expire.
- Security – create stability in your life that allows you to pursue opportunities. Ensure that you protect yourself should the opportunity fail to result in reward.
- Effort – do not delay effort when chasing opportunities, as their fleeting nature may result in them disappearing before you can capitalise. Ensure you apply yourself to the opportunity fully to give yourself the greatest chance of success.
Using these traits together will allow you to take advantage of opportunities and continuously work towards a stronger, better, richer, healthier, and happier version of yourself.
Benefits
Taking advantage of opportunities throughout your life doesn’t guarantee reward. But the act of pursuing opportunities often makes it easier for you to attain opportunities in the future. There are many benefits – direct and indirect – and I’ve summarised a few below.
Advance Your Career
Making progress in your career through promotions or upskilling allows you to gain higher responsibility and chase higher levels of income. Opportunities in this space are often highly competitive, so try to find opportunities or niches where there is less competition or lower risk of failure.
Build a Professional Network
A professional network will come about naturally throughout your career – provided you treat people with respect. The jobs you work, the connections you make on social media, and the fans of the content you produce can all potentially become employers, fans, or paying customers of your services.
Dedicating time to cultivating these relationships will directly or indirectly open many doors for you throughout your life journey.
Increase Your Income
Pursuing opportunities is an ongoing journey of finding things to focus on and develop in your life. Applying this thinking to your career and skill set will have a direct impact on increasing your income.
Find Good Investments
Investing is one third of my personal philosophy for how I approach life, and for good reason. The pursuit of opportunity makes you better at finding good opportunities and avoiding bad ones. Continue this exercise to stay sharp and find potential ways to efficiently reach your goals.
Instil Confidence in Yourself
The pursuit of opportunity itself builds character. Whatever the opportunity is, your effort towards becoming a better yourself of yourself will instil you with a confidence and stronger character. This in and of itself often results in positive outcomes in your own life, which in turn leads to more opportunity down the road.
Closing
Creating the means to take advantage of opportunities is necessary if you want to pursue a life of happiness and meaning.
Find ways to discover better ways to work, ways to invest your money, and ways to live a happy life within your means.
Taking advantage of opportunities won’t always pay off, but the pursuit of opportunity is what gives you the ability to strive towards better things in your life.
Do this enough, and you don’t need to find opportunities to get ahead. You can create your own.
Thank you for reading.
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