Nobody wants to miss out on an opportunity, whether it is for true love, adventure, new business–whatever.
But you actually can’t miss out unless you lock on.
Here’s what I mean.
We tend to think of opportunities as if they exist out in the world. But opportunities are a function of thought.
When you recognize an opportunity (it takes shape as a thought), you construct a virtual reality around it. Then you hold that reality in mind while you walk around inside it, testing possible scenarios and weighing the consequences of each.
That’s an amazing human capacity, and it’s incredibly rewarding when you’re in a spacious and creative frame of mind. But when you’re afraid of missing out, making a wrong move, or overlooking a ramification, it’s exhausting.
And it leads you to a dead end.
The more you fear missing out on an opportunity, the more you lock on, putting more and more of your attention onto that tiny subset of possibilities. Because that’s all you see, you start to believe that’s all there is.
You know you’ve locked on when your thinking gets muddier as the stakes skyrocket and your options shrink. The more important it becomes that you get this right, the less clear you are about what you should do.
You can’t think your way out of virtual reality lock-down. But you can recognize that you thought your way into it.
You can take off the goggles and headset.
You can relax and know that as your mind quiets and your mood lightens you’ll naturally see new possibilities.
In a universe of infinite potential, there’s just no such thing as an opportunity too important to miss.
Photo Credit: John Nicholls via Flickr
