Written by: Tanja Bogataj, M.Sc., Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
In this article I invite you into the world of opportunities to explore how you see, notice, create, experience and leverage them. I invite you to go a layer deeper to get more awareness and accuracy on your thoughts, beliefs and emotions behind and within, so you’ll be able to recognize a good opportunity. This will equip you to choose and create opportunities that truly support your vision, and at the same time allow you to use your gifts in the optimal way. For those of you who are ready or already beyond ready to step in and step up, I’m additionally offering the opportunity to take the LIFT UP so you can accelerate and multiply your desired success.
I. Be ready & be willing for your opportunity
The word ‘opportunity’ is defined as time and a set of circumstances that make it possible to do something. I think at least coaches, teachers, leaders, and entrepreneurs would say that that’s just one part of the description. The other part, to make the opportunity more potent and alive to create and realize it, is the action that’s needed to make it happen. The best approach to allow to flow with opportunities is, as Dr Wayne W. Dyer said, “the answer to how is yes”. Be there. Show up. Do your part. That doesn’t mean that all opportunities are good or right for you. It means that you don’t wait them, but rather meet them, being ready and willing, and along the way do what’s needed. That doesn’t mean that you’ll get just those opportunities that you wish for or like, but you’ll get all of those that you need to be and stay on your journey toward your goals fulfilment. You’ll know what’s needed from you when the opportunity emerges.
Use my LIFT UP be powerful and free® Opportunity Navigator to see what kind of opportunities do you have now available:
1. Sort your opportunities in 3 groups:
Green:
opportunities that are exactly what you need or looking for;
opportunities that you can say clear and decisive ‘yes’ ‒ you are ready to commit and take the action;
opportunities that you can afford, are low-risk, and/or you desire to take (for example, to learn something new);
Yellow:
opportunities that are exactly what you need or looking for, but you’re not yet ready, or something is ‘not yet’;
opportunities that you can’t say clear and decisive ‘yes’, but you don’t want to say clear and decisive ‘no’ either;
opportunities that you can afford, are low-risk, and/or you desire to take (for example, to learn something new), but they are ‘competing’ for your time, energy and other resources;
Red:
opportunities that are exactly what you need or looking for, but you’re for some reason afraid to act upon them;
opportunities that you perceive that they’d be great opportunities, if… (you’d have time, money, knowledge, or ‘something else’ that you believe you’re lacking);
opportunities that you think are high-risk, that you should/must say clear ‘no’ to but for some reason you don’t.
2. Check your list, and see if there are any opportunities that you haven’t sorted in any of these groups. Check if you’d need any other opportunity to make your goal a reality/success.
II.Developing the mindset to create and leverage the desired opportunity/-ies
1. How do you perceive opportunity/-ies?
I encourage you to do this self-exploration and awareness exercise:
How do your opportunities happen (inside or outside of you)?
What are your thoughts and experiences when you contemplate on the following words and their meaning in relation/ association to opportunity:
‘Opportunity’ as a ‘Success’, ‘breakthrough’, ‘disruption’, ‘lesson’, ‘detour’, ‘go for it’, “pass’, ‘open doors’, ‘closed doors’, ‘ending’, ‘beginning’, ‘expansion’, ‘step in’, ‘step down’, ‘step back’, ‘step up’, ‘learning’, ‘growing’.
Choose 1 of your opportunities: What’s your main fear in relation to this opportunity? What’s your main belief in relation to this opportunity? What are you hoping to gain/receive from this opportunity?
If you’d be given the opportunity of your life, what is it? Would you accept it?
How do you know that you’re noticing and acting upon a ‘good’/‘right’ opportunity?
Do you know what’s a good opportunity for you? And if yes, how do you know it?
How do you take the decision about which opportunity you accept (for example: research, contemplating on, listening the intuition, take into an account just facts, or ‘something else’)?
2. How do you save/remember situations and experiences that go under “Opportunity/-ies” folder?
I encourage you to do the “Save as” exercise:
Recall 1 ‘situation’ that you consider as an ‘opportunity’. Check how you’ve saved it in your mind.
See the ‘situation ‒ opportunity’ as if you’d see it for the first time.
How do you choose to save your ‘situation ‒ opportunity’ in your mind, if you know that it will impact your present and future?
3. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? As Richard Carlson says, “the first step to a change is to open your mind to the possibility”. If you stop thinking, and start living, what’s possible for you? To which possibility can you now open up your mind? Revisit your answers above, and check “your why” behind. Search for the thoughts and beliefs that reflect either lack (not enough, limited resources, limited availability, etc.) or abundance (enough, limitless, resourceful, etc.) mindset. Don’t be satisfied with the first answer on your what’s ’my why behind’. Keep asking yourself the Why question. Answering these questions, and exploring what’s behind and within will help you get closer and more accurate to where you’re currently at, and what’s the gap that you can now work with to get to where you’d like to be. This will prepare you to start noticing and acknowledging your opportunities faster and better. It will also give you the clarity about what kind of opportunity do you actually seek, or need to create to be successful with your goal.
4. How to navigate the quantity and quality? You can search and receive some good answers on how to navigate the quantity and quality by asking and exploring how do you make your choices and decisions. We need to develop a strong discerning muscle to be able to navigate effectively and efficiently between different opportunities and options. We also need to put enough time and attention into getting as clear as we can get about what we actually want, need, or look for, so that we can adjust our decision-making system to properly support us along the way. At the same time it is important to integrate and allow some ‘free space’ and breathing in between. You can’t control or predict everything, and it’s even better that you don’t even try to do so. If nothing else, you don’t want to limit or even block yourself to get your best opportunities. We allow the breathing with nurturing the faith and trust. Some opportunities will provide a quantum leap for us, some just to do a small, but necessary shift. Some will take us directly to the next level, and some will offer us to learn, practice, acknowledge, release or anything else that is needed for us to go on the next level.
“Finding opportunity is a matter of believing it’s there.” ‒ BarbaraCorcoran
III. LIFT UP your opportunities
I invite you now to continue your journey and LIFT UP your OPPORTUNITIES: 1. Connect with your core, and come to “your here and now”. Connect with your vision. Spend few minutes with it, and breathe life into. Feel it as you’re in it, as it’s done. 2. Visit your “GiftBank”. Connect with your gifts. How many gifts do you have? Which gift is your favourite, and why? Which gift you keep forgetting? How does it look like when you’re giving and receiving your gifts?
3. LIFT UP your GIFTS, VISION, and OPPORTUNITIES Mind-stretching:
4. Get ready to embark on the journey to the unknown. Where are you going? Which gifts do you need to get there? Which gifts do you already have to get there successfully? 5. You’re one decision away from your desired future. Which decision do you need to make? Make that decision today, and keep in mind:
“You are powerful beyond measure whatever you do with your energy. You can make magic by using and sharing your gifts of power and freedom to add more love and beauty into your life and living.” ‒Tanja Bogataj
Dear reader, I wish you to choose daily to be powerful and free and give the world the best of you so you can be and do the difference you are here to be and do. Keep inspiring by your example.
Tanja Bogataj, M.Sc., Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Tanja Bogataj, M.Sc. (www.tanjabogataj.com | tanjabogatajcoaching@gmail.com) is a Leadership Coach and Consultant, Founder of the be powerful and free® approach, Host of be powerful and free Platform, Founder and CEO of the Power for Change Institute. Tanja’s motto “In the world where you can be anything, choose to be powerful and free while making a difference”.
Sources and References:
Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, Live an inspired life, Hay House,2006;
Richard Carlson, Stop Thinking, Start Living, Element,2003;
Tanja Bogataj, “How to LIFT UP your gifts” Mind-Stretching be powerful and free® Session, TBC YouTube Channel, https://youtu.be/qLni6oaLasU, November 2022;
Tanja Bogataj, “How to LIFT UP your vision” Mind-Stretching be powerful and free® Session, TBC YouTube Channel, https://youtu.be/tsaJOJVTQ24, November 2022;
Tanja Bogataj, “How to LIFT UP your gifts” Mind-Stretching be powerful and free® Session, TBC YouTube Channel, https://youtu.be/qLni6oaLasU, November 2022;
