Opportunities in Disguise
Challenges, otherwise known as obstacles should be viewed as opportunities in disguise. Why? Because then you may be in the right frame of mind to tackle them. If you think of every bump in the road as an insurmountable obstacle, you will never get anywhere. But, if you think of it as an opportunity that is wrapped in a puzzle that you must solve to get at the benefits inside, you will have a much better chance of taking advantage of it.
What is opportunity?
Opportunity can be defined as (dictionary.reference.com):
In business it is often seen as a time when something drops into your lap from God knows where. This does occasionally happen, although it is rare. Usually opportunity comes disguised as hard work and usually because you were prepared for it. Opportunities seldom if ever come to those who are not prepared, often because they do not recognise them.
Look at it this way. Other people’s problems provide opportunities for you to grow your business by solving those problems for them. If problems are opportunities in disguise, then is not the whole world filled with opportunity?
Recognising Opportunities
Opportunities become easier to recognise when you have some idea about what you want. i.e. where you (or your business) are going, what your goals are etc. How can you possibly recognise an opportunity if you do not know what what kind of opportunities you want? As the saying goes: “For the Ship with No Port, No Wind is Favorable”. If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there? You have to be in the right frame of mind and know where you are going before you can recognise most opportunities. So, set goals for yourself and your business and keep an open mind.
More On Opportunities
There was a young man in Egypt a couple of decades ago. I wish I could remember his name. Maybe someone will comment and tell us. But, this young man was watching the boxing in the Olympics one year. He thought to himself, “I could do that”. This man had never trained before and spent much of his time watching the T.V. But, he saw Olympic boxing as an opportunity for him to do somthing with his life. He immediately joined a boxing gym and began to work on his opportunity. After four years of training he had his Olympic gold medal (i.e. in the very next Olympics). In this case the opportunity was obvious but so was the work required to make it happen. But, he was not put off by the problems surrounding his opportnity.
A classic example is the old saying; “If you have lemons, make lemonade”. Don’t look on lemons as a fruit that hardly anybody eats. Think instead about what else you might be able to do with those lemons. Turn your problems into opportunities.
Take Action
Take some action every day that will improve your chances of getting to where you are going. I always ask people, “How do you eat an elephant?”. The answer is simple: “One bite at a time”. As Anthony Robbing Says: Tiny Changes Mean Huge Results. The chances are that you will not reach your long term goals overnight, but you may very well achieve your short term goals in a very short time. Then move on to your next goal. Before long you will have made significant progress and will feel enormously encouraged to finish “eating that elephant”. Then what? Well, there are lots of elephants out there. Keep eating.
“Setbacks are given to ordinary people to make them extraordinary.”
Other useful articles:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Obstalces-Are-Just-Opportunities-In-Disguise&id=394956
http://modernservantleader.com/servant-leadership/turn-your-stopper-into-a-stopportunity
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