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When Opportunity Stops Knocking

December 12, 2018 by Colin Gautrey

At one point or another, if you have built your career on opportunities that just happened along – handy coincidences, good fortune – at some point they’ll stop. They won’t come along any more.

You’ll be regarded as being over the hill, out of touch, but you will not notice until it’s far too late.

I’ve got nothing against a career based on opportunities, excitement, adventure, spontaneity. However, the big flaw with that approach is:

  • You don’t notice the opportunities for what they are and how they can contribute to your long-term fulfilment. You’ll just be deciding if it is a good idea at the time.
  • It can take too long for these opportunities to come along. Before you realise it, you’ve been in a job longer than ever before. Then you have to start scratching your head, wondering, “Well, what next? How can I make it happen? Where have all the opportunities gone?”

Now, what I’m not advocating here is that everybody should strive for a particular position, have their career all mapped out. Instead, what I do advocate is that regardless of how you progress your career, you at least put in place some significant stretch targets to increase the amount of adventure and opportunity that are coming in your direction.

Continue to enjoy your current adventure, and actively manage your progression to the next, and the one after that.

 


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