When you miss out on an opportunity

Everyone experiences these things at least once in their life time that things may not have gone your way in the past, and you may think your dreams have died, but God has new opportunities in front of you, from Love Your Life: Living Happy, Healthy, and Whole.When I look back over my life, I can see where I’ve missed out on some God-given opportunities. Maybe you are saying the same thing. If so, I want to encourage you: Don’t live in regret. Don’t let lost opportunities make you feel disappointed and discouraged. God is bigger than your lost opportunities. He can still get you where you need to go in life.

It is like have you ever used one of those GPS directional systems navigating your car? You set the location where you want to go, and the GPS calculates the best route. You can be driving along and get distracted and completely miss the street where the GPS instructed you to turn, but that doesn’t mean you’ll never reach your destination. That GPS system will instantly recalculate the route, based on your present location. God works in a similar way. He is constantly giving us direction, speaking to our hearts, leading us by granting peace or unrest in our spirit, but even when we miss His instructions — and we all do from time to time — He will recalculate our route and get us back where we need to be.

I love what the Apostle Paul said: “This one thing I do; forgetting those things which are behind, I reach forth to the things which are before me.” He was saying that we must turn our thoughts toward the present and future and keep looking for the new opportunities in our paths. Be prepared, because God is ready to fulfill the dreams and desires He’s placed within your heart. He loves to restore opportunities that once seemed lost forever. And sometimes He brings those opportunities back in ways we haven’t considered or weren’t looking for. It may not always be the way we thought; but if you’ll stay open, God will bless you beyond your wildest dreams.

Wow, I can very well relate. Few years back there was a job opening I was selected out of many candidates as my background suited them perfectly. The work was exactly what I wanted to do, it offered a great learning experience in that the job was willing to teach me as I go, the benefits were awesome and the location was convenient. I wanted to switch fields in my career, and this was the perfect job to ease that transition. Since this was a country head position located at Bangalore I decided to leave my current high paying job and moved to Bangalore in expectation that I will be heading this new startup venture with 2 times salary plus company accommodation and company maintained vehicle. Everything looked so perfect as I was thanking my good fortune.

But then I missed this grand opportunity after spending 3 anxious months sitting in Bangalore office where I was doing all the planning of forming a new company and getting it registered and started recruitment plan for the business development and operations team. But something drastic happened and the company abroad which was planning to invest in our startup venture suddenly developed cold feet and decided to pull back from this joint venture. All hell broke loose as I was asked to wind up whatever we were doing and return home with 3 months salary in advance as a compensation. Here was I back home without getting anything in hand for which I had left my stable high paying multinational job.

I was really bummed out as family strongly stood by me. But I was mostly upset with myself and the result of my wrong and unproductive choices. All I could think was what could have been... I let myself beat myself up for a day or two, but after two days I stopped cursing myself. There was no point in getting annoyed with myself for something that I already messed up on. It passed, the chance was gone forever and I lost my good job too.

Everyone has missed opportunities, that's a given. What sets the successful apart from the rest is how they deal with them. Most people will linger on about missed opportunities in the past, berating themselves for their lack of action. They will replay the events in their mind over and over again fantasizing about what would have happened if they did something differently. Little do they realize that these hypotheticals are pure fiction, and that there are opportunities right in front of them at all times. They want others to pity them and justify how great they could've been, and subconsciously do this because they don't want to put in the work now.

Successful people aren't preoccupied with missed opportunities for a long period of time. They are out breaking barriers and chasing new ones, making sure they don't slip away again. They understand the lessons learned from previous mistakes, but are not emotionally attached to the events. They are aware that no one can change the past, but we all have the power to shape the future. There's nothing wrong with being like most, but if you want to be successful you have to stop lingering in the past and take action instead. People pass you when you're looking back.

How do you get over missing a good opportunity? Don't let it happen again! And don't reprimand yourself for losing a good thing longer than necessary, otherwise you're simply wasting your time feeling shitty over something that no longer matters. The only thing that should matter afterwards is that you don't forget what you did to lose a good chance, and hopefully you won't make the same mistake when the next chance indefinitely finds you. Cheers!