Don’t wait yourself out of opportunities.
This is one of those things I seem to see way too often. To be honest I wasn’t sure how I wanted to relate this one. Luckily my kids have all decided that they love the show survivor recently. Which has us marathoning 29 or so seasons. There’s something oddly gratifying about hearing your 5 year old breakdown who should go first at tribal counsel.
The one thing that she loves to point out is “they haven’t even played the game”. Let me be clear, this is a kindergartner that can recognize when someone isn’t taking opportunities to move forward. That’s exactly what I’m talking about here.
If you’re familiar with the show then you’ll know that there is always at least one contestant that has all these angles they could play. On face value they appear to be in a great place to win the whole thing. Then for whatever reason they chose to wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. Until finally someone else with way less potential in the game, takes them out.
The person who was waiting is always shocked that they’re out. What happened? I had all these options. I was just waiting for….
Unfortunately this isn’t unique to the show. This happens in people’s real lives everyday. They’ve got all these wonderful ideas. Ways to improve their company, their business, even their relationships. They sit and contemplate every single possible outcome from taking every possible action. They are like the Nostradamus of their own lives. Able to tell you with convincing certainty what would most likely happen in any scenario based off tons of anecdotal evidence. Then what happens? Absolutely nothing!
All that time spent planning, strategizing, war gaming, and worrying is squandered. Simply because they never just took action on anything. They waited. Waited for what?
It can be anything. Waiting until kid X is out of diapers, elementary school, high school, college, etc. Waiting for a certain time of day. Waiting on a particular time of year. Or the worst in my opinion, waiting on the approval of others.
The list goes on but the takeaway doesn’t change. My point is simple. Don’t wait yourself out of opportunities. Don’t let things pass you by waiting until the unattainable “perfection” or the approval of others. Don’t miss your shot!
At the end of the day we all get one crack at this amazing thing called life. I for one am not letting anyone put my torch out without giving it all I’ve got and going after every opportunity. My hope is that you don’t either.
