I want to start off by saying, there are an abundance of opportunities in this world. Yep, you heard me, abundance. Repeat that to yourself if you do not already have that concept in your frame of mind right now. I don’t care what we are talking about whether it is a professional opportunity or a personal one, the Universe is constantly providing you opportunities whether you are proactively looking for them or not. There are times when an opportunity can come knocking on your door when you least expect it in which you might feel a sense of good luck. Then why do so many people face missed opportunities or have regrets about not taking an opportunity that was presented to them?

I truly believe the majority of the time, there is no excuse for a missed opportunity. In other words, there is no reason to have them and if you missed one, then that ship often has sailed so you need to move on to the next golden opportunity that awaits you (remember, there are plenty so do not get bent if one just went sailing by). If you “missed an opportunity,” then it could be for quite a number of reasons. I’ll list a few that I can think of off the top of my head right now but of course this is just a general list:

Causes of a Missed Opportunities:

– You did not want it bad enough.
– You were too slow to act on it.
– You had too many opportunities on hand and missed the one you actually wanted.
– You realized after it was too late.
– You simply want what you can not or no longer have.

So what is the solution to all of this? How can you prevent yourself from experiencing another missed opportunity? This leads me to a saying that I came up with years ago and that I love sharing with others as it applies to this context as an immediate solution: “You have to know gold when you see it.“ In other words, you have to know a good opportunity when you see it and go for it immediately. You cannot just let it pass you by or think too hard on it because depending on what it is, it can easily be taken by someone else or never present itself again. If you were to see a piece of gold appear on the ground right before your eyes, without hesitation, you would go grab it immediately, wouldn’t you? You *know* what gold looks like upon seeing it so you acted on it right away without skipping a beat. There was no way it was going to become a missed opportunity or go over your head because without question, you know that gold is valuable.

Now I want to point out that if we are talking about a job, you might have been provided with the opportunity to apply but not always get the job. Yes, that is a missed opportunity that might not fully have been in your control; however, it was never 100% a guaranteed opportunity supplied to you to begin with. I am referring to opportunities that were 100% given to you and within your control but became a missed opportunity–whatever the cause may be.

I want you to also think about my saying within this context: If YOU gave someone an opportunity and the person did NOT take it and essentially rejected it, do not offer it again and walk away. The opportunity should completely be off the table now.

Why? Note to yourself: You are gold. You are high value. If someone fails to see your worth and what you bring to the table, the person is not deserving of you or what you have to offer to begin with. It could be a job setting, dating situation, or just about anything in which you essentially served as the opportunity but got denied or overlooked. There is no need for hard feelings over the matter–you are still gold at the end of the day, right? 😉