Going after opportunities is great – but sometimes it’s all about timing and priorities

While many of us are riven by fear and only want security in times of large uncertainty, others manage to shift their mindset to seeing the constant and vast number of opportunities that come our way every day. It is already an amazing step forward if we managed to get to this point where we start seeing opportunities rather than only defending the status quo. However, sometimes seeing opportunities just is not enough. We also need to carefully evaluate them and most crucially, get the timing right. As sometimes even with the best opportunity at hand - it is just not the right timing.

The first thing we must understand is, we cannot do everything at once. We need to prioritize, and carefully consider what we want to spend our time and effort on in different stages of our life. Especially women know what I am talking about here. We need to juggle between family and our job, and we need to really very often apply a filter on all the tasks at hand to also remember to have some me time. It is therefore always good to go for opportunities, as they help us thrive and develop – but we need to carefully consider the timing as well.

For example, is it wise to go after that new job opportunity when we are expecting to have a family in the next few months? Is it wide to move home again and get settled in a new place while we have a lot of other battles to fight in our life? There is a saying to choose your battles in life and this is exactly right when it comes to prioritizing the opportunities we want to go for.

While our mind should always be aware of and think about opportunities that come our way each day – we need to learn to sometimes also let them go as they might be a great fit but come at the wrong time. Of course, there are these once in a lifetime shot, where really, we must go for it, however, they don’t come along that often. Mostly, we need to ask ourselves if this is the right time to go for it or not.

The danger here is of course, that we become a bit lazy and always tell ourselves we don’t need to jump as a other opportunity will come along. Of course, this is also not the right path to take. We need to find a balance of seeing the opportunity at hand and making a carefully evaluated choice to go for it, always keeping in mind if it is the right time and the potential price, we pay for it. And sometimes the price is just too high, or the circumstances just are not right. That choice is ok too, and has nothing to do with failure, it just means that we set other priorities for our life now, that might end up making us happier in the end.

There are millions of opportunities out there, and it is great if we can train our mind to be positive and see those. However, seeing those and just going for it is not always the right answer. Sometimes, we need to stop, evaluate, and politely decline as we have other battles to fight in our life such as family or friends that we see as more important at different stages. The great thing is, those change dynamically over time and at some point, we will be ready to jump and give an opportunity our all – without feeling guilty about it or paying a high price to have gone for it. Opportunities are great, but other circumstances must fall into place as well to make the opportunities valuable to us and have them pay off in the end. Choose wisely therefore and you will be rewarded in the end. Also, maybe for the boldness to not always jump on the first opportunity at hand.