OPPORTUNITIES TAKEN AND OPPORTUNITIES MISSED

Swimming with Whale Sharks

I recorded this live on Facebook while in the Philippines.

What is an opportunity?

It is something that comes along, it inspires us and makes our lives better, either in the moment or longer term.

It is experiencing something new, something different or something more

Why don’t we take up opportunities when they can be so enlightening and freeing and joy making?

• Timing – an inconvenient moment when we are busy with something else
• Fear – we are too scared to say yes as we are not sure of the outcome
• Visibility – we don’t always see them as opportunities
• Distraction – in this busy world we often don’t see them, or we have something better to do right now
• It looks like work
• Lack of finances
• You feel that you do not deserve this (either consciously or subconsciously)
• Not something I am interested in but something bigger is behind it.

Let me share my story.

 I lived in Oman in the Middle East for 10 years

Oman has some incredible diving spots.

I used to do a lot of scuba diving back in Cape Town

My friend Ali Mac dived regularly in Oman and had some awesome experiences not least of diving with Whale Sharks.

I always had an excuse… I don’t have a swimming costume, I am too fat, I don’t fit into a wet suit, it has been so long since I last dived, I am afraid, I am too busy…

So here I am in the Philippines and I finally decide to go whale shark diving.

Well – it was great – but less than awesome.

It was a fish factory (excuse the pun)

Firstly – Japan has national holidays so there were thousands of tourists.

A five am start enabled me to get into the water around 9:30 am.

Hours of standing in queues and just hanging around for your number to be called – I was on boat number 137. Each boat takes around 8 people.

You paddle out to an enclosed area where marine biologists are feeing the whale sharks to bring them in.

It was like a zoo.

And there was always somebody swimming or diving or getting in the way of your view.

So – my missed opportunity was to see these magnificent creatures in the wild with no other distractions.

I saw them in a fish factory, zoo like environment.

But I took this opportunity.

And I am still fat and cannot fit into a swimming costume or wet suit and my leg problems make it difficult for me to manoeuvre.

Life is filled with opportunities, both hidden and overt.

Sometimes we must go looking for them and sometimes they just appear.

So how do we find and make the most of opportunities:

Here is a brief list –– please let me know below if you want more detail.

• Keep your eyes open and actively look out for them. Be aware and pay attention to what happens around you
• Practice mindfulness, breathing techniques and meditation
• Be flexible
• Have an openness to possibility and actively seek new avenues
• Trust your gut and take a chance.
• Yes – it may end up teaching you a lesson, but then again – it may change your life forever.
• We can also manifest these opportunities with our visions and aspirations setting.
• Look at the expected result and take the first step
• Challenge yourself, your thoughts, your ideas and find new avenues
• Look at passed missed opportunities – review them – why did you miss that opportunity – what was the reason. Work on these patterns or behaviours
• Believe in yourself and your intuition and your free will
• YOU are responsible for your choices
• YOU make it happen
• View the world through someone else’s eyes – someone you admire or may even envy – see what they see
• Take that action, take it quickly
• Be optimistic and positive

Go grab that opportunity!