Last week, I attended a webinar in which we explored what skills we can share online that would benefit the greater community. I had mentioned an idea I had which received conflicting response. I am interested to test the idea here in order to gauge the potential need. The topic was how to avoid missed opportunities.
In this article I’d like to share with you 7 ways to avoid missing opportunities. Life is short and our time is precious. It is hard to face missed opportunities, especially when the opportunity that was missed is an important one or could have been life changing.
- Regular Prayer: Set aside some time on a daily basis to talk to G-d, the Ruler of the Universe. Pour out your heart in prayer. You can mention your regrets, disappointments, frustrations, desires and needs. In short, anything that is on your mind and particularly those issues that are bothering you. If you use this time effectively this daily prayer time will have three benefits for you. The first it is a wonderful means of stress release and we can all use some tips to reduce stress in our lives. The second is that it clears your thoughts of all those details that upset you and creep into your discussions with others. The third is that it brings clarity to you especially related to your life goals and priorities.
- Make Your Conversations Productive: Now that your worries and problems have been worked with in an appropriate manner, take the trouble to make sure that your conversations with family, friends and loved ones are productive. What does this mean? It is easy to fall into the trap of going over the same old script over and over and over. This creates a diversion and leads to many missed opportunities. However, if you have already cleared your mind and heart of all those issues that are upsetting you, your time with family and friends can now be productive. Instead of griping to someone about x problem that happened several weeks, months or years ago, you can now spend that time sharing interests, goals and dreams. You can discuss interesting new ideas and have the time to learn and gain from one another.
- Take care of your health: Along with having regular time for prayer, take the time to take care of your health. This includes making sure to have a healthy, balanced diet and to be careful about your daily activities. In order to be healthy requires regular exercise, adequate, quality sleep and a balance to your day. Not taking care of your health can lead you down the path to be susceptible to illness or injury which brings with it all kinds of missed opportunities on many levels.
- Show Appreciation: Show appreciating whenever you can at the time that you experience whatever requires showing appreciation for. This can be saying thank you. It can also be expressing appreciation to someone who inspires you. Delaying in doing so can lead to missed opportunities. I can share a simple example. When I was in high school, several teachers had mentioned a student from the same standard who always managed to complete her homework on time, in full and to study well for all her tests. To most that might seem like a regular accomplishment for a high school student, except that this student had the added burden of undergoing dialysis 3 times a week. When she was used as an example for those in our standard for the second or third time I thought about finding her and showing appreciation for her tremendous effort. I regret to admit that by the time I gathered my courage to do so, we received the news that she had passed away in her father’s arms. Don’t wait for a missed opportunity, show appreciation the moment it becomes clear that something has inspired you or that someone has done something for you that requires thanking them!
- Avoid Gossip and Negative Speech: Keep away from gossiping or putting others down. Aside from the negative effect that this manner of communication has on you, it also takes up your time that could be far better spent on productive, happy conversations.
- Take care of your belongings. This could mean putting them away, locking them appropriately, washing them when needed. Your possessions are more likely to last if you put in the effort required to take care of them. This includes keeping your belongings organized and developing the habit to put them away appropriately. So often we waste precious time in hunting for an item or in having to repair or replace an item due to not taking care of them effectively. This time could be spent more productively if you get into the habit of taking care of what you have.
- Develop a things to do list: Spend a little time setting goals and an ongoing things to do list. Once you have these in place, be diligent to take care of those important items that need attention today. You never know what might happen that could prevent you from taking care of those important tasks. You also never know the consequences of not completing something that was important to do in the right time.
The above seven points give quite some thought to ponder. They also offer ideas of how to improve one’s daily life so as to avoid missing important opportunities. Don’t run the risk of not being able to have that important conversation, of saying thank you or of achieving an important life goal or life role. Take the steps to focus your life and to take the appropriate action in the right time. In this way you can live a productive life and have more chance of living a life free of regret. There are more ways to avoid missed opportunities. If this topic is of interest to you, please do be in touch or leave a comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.
Originally published at medium.com