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Dictating your own opportunity: 3 ways to make life work in your favor
Whenever the idea of opportunity comes up, it’s often referred to as some distant and unreachable asset that’s only eligible to a select few.
Depending on who you speak to, you’d be led to believe that opportunity was the pot at the end of the rainbow and the leprechauns are everyone you’re not.
At times it feels like I’ve heard it all: “I didn’t grow up in a two-parent household,” “we were poor,” you’re white, we’re black.”
While I don’t want to ignore the preponderance of societal factors that do indeed affect the advantages each and every one of has in the system that is America, the fact remains that when we dwell on the unfairness, we succumb to it.
Most importantly, our energy would be better spent on the opportunities we actually do have.
We can create our own opportunity — an opportunity that’s specifically unique to us and our own individuality. Once we eliminate negativity and doubt from our minds, we can reshape our reality.
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Whether it’s a summer in Spain, passing the CPA or that move cross country, what you’ve always wanted to do — the opportunity you feel is out of arms reach — will never come into fruition until you see it as possible for yourself.
Once a mental obligation is made toward intentionally seeing yourself where you want to go, the boundaries dissipate and the limits become endless.
Doubt less
There was a point in time in our lives when we believed anything was possible — a time when we believed the world was at our fingertips and that our dreams we’re our playground.
Over time, though, something changed. Call it real life happening or reality settling in or growing up, but that child-like naivete is a powerful tool that many of us have abandoned and is one of the main keys to locking into the opportunity that lies all around us.
We simply cannot limit ourselves. We’re already privy to the abundance of factors that make our dreams difficult to begin with, why feed into it with our own doubts and disbelief?
Do you want to create an opportunity for yourself? Take the first step instead of ruling yourself out. What you’ll find is that whichever limitations you thought you couldn’t rise above, will be much easier than you suspected.
The easiest excuse for failure is your environment. When everything and everyone around you doesn’t reflect what you’re trying to achieve, it’s easy to assimilate with that lifestyle, almost serving as an out for those who need it. The key, however, is to put the focus on where you see yourself, rather than where you currently are.
Your social class, the education level of your parents, or your age, are all relative to what value you place on them. You write your own history, regardless of the statistics standing in your way.
Hope more
How we address our mental health is another way to create our own opportunity. As well as doubting less, many of us don’t practice the act of hope — to intentionally believe for the better — to have faith.
Popular culture has made the term faith a controversial one. It’s often associated with religion which is divisive by nature, so it’s understandable why some would take distance to the word and its meaning. But it’s far more than what one religious faction can put into a box.
Faith and hope channel our desires into a singular location — wherever it is that we want to go. The more we hope, the more we’re fixed on where we need to go. The more we have faith, the more we, ourselves, believe it’s possible.
However, because we don’t want to “jinx” — or, in other words, because we don’t think we deserve what we desire — we choose to just let it be.
Opportunities lie ahead of each and every one of us and are just waiting to be unleashed. When we prioritize hope over doubtful circumstances, we begin to move closer to our dreams.
Work harder
It may seem like a no-brainer, but you can literally reshape the course of your life and make opportunity happen for yourself by pushing yourself to limits you’ve never gone before.
In fact, work ethic and the concentration to increase it is the easiest and fastest way to create your own opportunity. Your potential relies on the passion you put towards your future. That means whatever you say you’re driven to do or have or go, requires the same amount of work that makes you entitled to it.
Oftentimes, we look at successful celebrities, the athletes who have garnered championships, and the professionals who have had long careers in their dream job, we assume that their opportunity came from handouts. That is just not the case.
Reaching unforeseen heights, success and achievements undoubtedly come from hustling. You simply won’t attain your goals without having put in the necessary time and work.
You cannot have expectations without having the proper plan to execute landing them for yourself, and that’s what hard work does.
Opportunity is sometimes gifted to people. Some people are fortunate enough to be given more opportunities than others just like you, yourself, were given opportunities millions across the world don’t have.
Our job isn’t to look on one side or another and determine who has more or who has it easier. Our job is to recognize the opportunity we have — no matter how little — and to multiply that using the resources we have. That’s creating chances for yourself.
Once we do this, we can dictate the life we’ve always wanted for ourselves.