Potential versus Opportunity
If opportunity knocks, does potential open the door for it? Sometimes I think people confuse one with the other.
When I coach clients I often hear them talk about missing an opportunity. They will tell me,” I missed the opportunity to learn that.” or ” I missed my chance for an advancement.” I have even heard, ” I missed out on the one opportunity to change direction.”
Most people think once an opportunity is gone it won’t ever return, however that is where potential comes in. Potential is the ability to change things; the capacity to develop something for the future.
Everyone has potential. How you use it is, of course, another matter. Potential is what you do with what you have. I think more people miss potential than opportunity but often opportunity gets the blame.
Let’s look at it like this: If you think you missed an opportunity to learn something, is it possible you have the potential to start today to develop a skill you need? If you missed a chance for an advancement or to change direction, don’t you have the potential to decide to recreate that opportunity in the future?
If you are not dead, you have potential.
You see, it’s about perspective. If you want more opportunities, you have the potential to affect that. You can create opportunities whenever you use your potential the right way.
If you have already decided you have missed, eliminated or lost opportunities in your life, then you are deciding there is no potential to correct that and that is basically a decision you make not one that is determined by circumstance.
Some people believe they have missed out on changing the direction of their lives because of a lack of education, money or support. Yet, I have worked with clients who have scraped the bottom of the financial barrel to start something on their own with no resources, limited time and a weak or non existent support system.
I have also worked with clients who really did not get an opportunity to be educated in something they loved, but used their potential to learn all about it so they could become better at it and improve any skills they did have.
Potential is the ability to develop something for the future. None of us live in the future so none of us have more potential than anyone else to change that direction.
Everyone has to start where they are, using what they have to end up with where they want to be. While what you have, where you are and where you want to be are different for everyone, it’s your potential that starts the ball rolling, not waiting for opportunity to show up and create a path for you.
Potential creates opportunity but opportunity does not necessarily create more potential.
If you have the potential to recognize what you want your future to look like, then you have an idea of what you need to do to get there. Whether you get an opportunity or not does not detract from that idea.
Once you have an idea, then you can determine the steps you need to take to act on making it happen. Again, whether the opportunity arises or not, determining the steps still creates an action plan and you can use your potential to put that action plan into place.
People in prison have earned degrees, created businesses and moved on with their lives. Handicapped individuals have developed skills to move forward into the future. People with economic challenges have become CEO’s of companies, authors, and teachers.
You can grow up in a very dysfunctional family and still have the potential for greatness. (Read EDUCATED by Tara Westover. THE GLASS CASTLE by Jeannette Walls or ETCHED IN SAND by Regina Calcaterra.)
We are blessed with potential. We get lucky with opportunity.
Stop waiting for opportunity to knock. Open the door and Go Your Own Way!
Need to determine what to do with your potential? Struggling to create a future you want to live in? Schedule a COMPLIMENTARY CONSULT and learn how to create your future even if opportunity never shows up!
This post was originally published at https://www.kathybrunner.com/potential-versus-opportunity/
