What if I were to tell you that you don’t need anyone to give you permission to live the life you want? Opportunities are abundant and surround us all of the time. When some people think about opportunities, they think about a job promotion or finally being able to afford a large home with a nice view. But smaller opportunities for personal growth and happiness surround us, we just have to pay attention and look very closely inside of ourselves, find what we really want, and make a game plan to get it. By becoming self-aware of ourselves and our surroundings, we have an easier time creating and attracting opportunities for personal success. This article lists five detailed steps to easily create opportunities to really focus on yourself, your goals, and the dreams that you want to achieve.

Showing Gratitude- When most people think about gratitude, the first thing they think about is Thanksgiving. What if I were to tell you that gratitude is the very first step to creating opportunities for yourself and it can be practiced every day? By focusing on what you are grateful for, you will be able to have a deeper understanding of how you communicate and act in your everyday life. A simple exercise to find out what you’re grateful for is every evening write down a couple of things you are grateful for that you have experienced during the day. It can be a simple as someone helped you finish a job assignment at work on time or you enjoy waking up to the sound of birds outside of your window. Showing gratitude shifts your perspective into a much more positive one, which will open doors for you as you are working towards your goals and dreams.

Knowing What Your Talents and Skills Are– Think about your talents and skills as tools that serve you on your quest to achieving your dreams. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once said, “The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it”. Knowing what your talents and skills provide you the opportunity to continue making them stronger, increases happiness, and inspire others to use their talents. For example, if you know that you are a gifted storyteller, you can help others create speeches or even write your own book. By knowing this, you are able to easily find opportunities to grow and whatever you want to grow in. 

Motivation To Work When Nobody is Watching- Shannon L. Alder once said, “One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself.” Are you someone who currently requires validation after completing something? Then you may have a challenging time focusing on your personal goals and what you want to achieve in life because you don’t have someone to validate what you want. Some people may be discouraged to reach a goal because most of the time there are many steps that need to be completed, and goals often take time to complete. To reach many goals, there are often little necessary steps along the way (especially in the beginning) that aren’t as visually obvious. Creating opportunities for yourself requires you to have a lot of motivation and self-discipline to achieve your goals because no one is going to work towards your goals. You are responsible for that. 

Paying Attention To Your Choices- You may have an experience where you really focused on your work and we don’t pay attention to what is going around us.  You may be so engrossed to the point where you may forget some details from your everyday life. Examples being making sure that a job assignment is top-notch or connecting with a friend from another country who may help you find a place to stay when you’re vacationing to Argentina in a few months. By focusing on our life choices if we pay attention to them early on provides us the opportunity to be grateful, to become closer to those we care, and to make our lives easier down the line. 

Going With Flow- Going with the flow and accepting yourself requires a lot of courage. If you spend a lot of time focused on your work, a project, or just something that you are dedicating a lot of time to, it is easy to forget about self-care. If you are constantly jumping from one activity to another, going with the flow presents you with the opportunity to become centered, to focus on your loved ones, and to focus on the abundance that surrounds us. We create opportunities for ourselves when we accept our life and ourselves, but we just have to let go of our expectations. Going with the flow requires us to accept our mistakes and change directions or tweak our goals or plans. It’s also a very good habit to develop because by doing this, we become more authentic.

Opportunities are absolutely everywhere and these suggested steps can help you change your perspective in order to find them. It is best to not solely focus on looking for opportunities, but instead on personal development. Not only will you be able to develop confidence in yourself, but you will also be able to on what you really want to do in your life. Has this last inspired you to look at opportunities and your goals in a different light? If so, please comment below and let me know what you think.