When Opportunity Isn't Knocking, Find A New Door

Creating Your Own Opportunity

Buzz Kill Alert: We don’t shift our lives by merely thinking happy thoughts. We shift our lives by taking action steps and sprinkling them with a little faith. Every once in awhile there is some post online that makes me LOL (can’t believe I just typed that, but it’s true!). And while, yes, life is not about taking ourselves so seriously — we do need to show up for the party. I’ll amuse you by sharing the post:

“Do what you love & money will follow.

So I ate pizza, drank wine, took a 5-hour nap in my underwear, and took selfies with my dog…now I wait.”

Ha! Sounds enticing right? But seriously we have to find the space between the fluffy inspirational quotes and reality — the place where the rubber meets the road. Look, I’m all for happy thoughts and dreams come true mantras. My life is filled with them. I regularly tell my son to build a life from what he loves before the world tells him that the end goal should be something different. And I have witnessed the power and results of people pursuing their passions. But I also know that happy thoughts alone will not get you there. And I think we are doing ourselves a disservice to think that we can merely meditate, pray or wish our problems away.That’s not to say that opting for positivity – the glass is ½ full rather than empty stance — isn’t important. When we call forth positivity, gratitude, compassion and love, they create the breeding ground for us to plant our action seeds. We keep ourselves balanced and aligned in self-love practices attending to our body, mind and soul. Thinking happy thoughts alone doesn’t change circumstances in our lives. And happy thoughts alone will not magically manifest opportunities. Sometimes when opportunity isn’t knocking, you need to find another door and create your own.It’s hard to accept disappointments in life because let’s face it — we want what we want when we want it. I’m no different. Blah blah blah to all that ‘divine timing’ — I often have difficulty reconciling that one. And yet I can’t tell you how many times that blah, blah, blah has made sense to me later down the road and how I am ultimately grateful for it.A decade ago when my life hit rock bottom, I had two choices: stay there or do something about it. I chose the latter. Lying in bed thinking happy thoughts wasn’t going to help me heal, grow, pay the bills, raise my son or become the person I was capable of becoming. And it certainly wasn’t going to help me manifest my dreams. Taking action steps on wobbly, insecure, fear-filled feet, was. I held firmly onto any semblance of optimism I could muster — but the reality is that it took my putting my feet on the ground and making a move.There are no guarantees in life and yep, you might stumble, ‘fail’ or be detoured along the way. I know it’s not easy to believe in yourself or your dreams when you find yourself flat on the ground. But just know that, as with your car’s navigation system, you can set your internal GPS to ‘rerouting’. What I’m really trying to say here is that faith without action doesn’t produce magical results. Life is about striking that balance, finding a way to honor your feelings — to feel what you feel, to listen to your inner voice, to create the most peaceful environment for yourself — and to take action steps.I’m not suggesting that in order to be successful you must be an indentured servant, a slave to your cause — but taking a step toward your dream, no matter how big or small, is the game-changer. The entrepreneur is a great example of whipping up the perfect recipe combining inspiration, dreams, vision and hard work (lots of it!). These same principals can also be applied to your health. When we want to shift the needle in any aspect of our lives, whether we’re talking about a health situation, finances, relationships, or our self-care practices —we need to hold onto a vision and implement action.There is no one roadmap for this thing called life. What I have learned is that when we can allow ourselves to dream and act upon those visions — we are seizing the day, creating our own opportunity and as ‘Glinda the Good Witch’ says, clicking our own heels.Carpe Diem…let’s put those happy thoughts in motion.Is there something you’ve been dreaming of that you can take an action step towards? Let me know in the comments below.