Life would be so much easier if you didn’t miss out on the opportunities that were right in front of you. Why do you keep missing them?
3 Reasons You’re Missing Out on Incredible Opportunities
Have you ever read something or heard someone say something, perhaps that you’ve read or heard before, but suddenly, this time, it clicked for you?
You’re not alone. This happens to everyone.
Sometimes I feel like l was standing in front of a wall for years, looking at the wall, and all of a sudden I notice a door to a secret room. And in the moment when I see the door, I wonder:
Was that door there the entire time? If it was, why didn’t I see it before?
We often miss what’s right in front of us: opportunities, lessons, wisdom, solutions.
And that sucks. Do you ever feel like you would save so much struggle and heartache if you could see and hear a lesson the first time it showed up, or if you had realized the incredible opportunity that was right in front of you?
If you want to stop missing out on incredible opportunities, the first step is to understand why you’re missing them now.
Here are three reasons why we miss out on incredible opportunities.
(1) We Aren’t Looking or Listening For It
What we see is a reflection of who we are and where we are in our path of development. We can receive only what we are ready to receive.
The big insight you had on your third reading of the book wasn’t available to you on your first reading because you weren’t in a place where you could appreciate it. You weren’t yet the person who could act on it. You were closed off to the potential, even though it was there.
Personal development is not just about reciting affirmations or finding new life hacks. True growth requires spiritual growth. Spiritual growth is a path of unfolding; opening to what is available to us and what is being called from us.
As the saying goes, “when the student is ready, the teacher appears.”
Lesson: We see what we seek.
To hear or see wisdom we must be actively looking for it and open to receiving it.
(2) Too Much Noise Drowns it Out
You already know about the external noise. We are inundated with marketing messages, fake news, real news, pings from our social feeds, apps, and emails. And then there’s the stuff we intentionally consume: books, podcasts, courses, and articles. All of these things demand energy and attention that would otherwise be available to tune into our inner wisdom.
The noise is not just in our external environment; it is also within us. The wisdom might be drowned out by the noise in our minds — the voices of the inner critic, looping thoughts, running lists of tasks to do, and mental tallies of projects to complete and people to call. Our constant busyness and hustle block our inner wisdom from speak out.
Lesson: Wisdom emerges in the silence.
Wisdom speaks in a still, small voice. To hear it, we must create a space of silence and allow it to emerge.
(3) We Run Away From It
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. — Thomas A. Edison
Opportunities often don’t look, feel, or sound the way we might imagine they would.
Often, the voice of wisdom speaks in a way that creates discomfort, either physically or emotionally. To truly understand what is happening, we dive beneath the surface and go deep. This requires a willingness to stay with what is there until the deeper understanding emerges.
We have fear around this, so we escape through any number of means. There are the obvious distractions: news, social media, food, alcohol, web surfing, busy work, drugs, sex.
We also escape through emotions like anger, outrage, confusion, frustration, or feeling stuck.
And there are the “high-achiever-distractions,” like books, courses, workshops, writing, workouts. This is not to say that any of these are necessarily “bad.” They all have their place. The question is not one of “what” but “why.”
Lesson: To see and seize the opportunity, we must be willing to stay.
To see and hear the wisdom, we must be willing to stay with what is in front of us and explore it more thoroughly.
What’s Your Pattern?
Do you tend to be closed off to the possibility? Do you drown yourself in external and internal noise? Do you run away from the opportunity because it looks like work and feels like pain? Or some combination of the above?
[…] previously wrote about why we often miss the opportunities that are right in front of us. When we block ourselves from seeing what’s in front of us, we miss the crucial moments that […]