HAPPY NEW YEAR! I really hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday and welcomed in 2019 with determination, conviction, and drive to go after your goals and dreams in all aspects of your life with compassion and gratitude! Welcome back and I have missed you all. Very excited to reconnect with you my loyal music lovers and readers! If you are new to my journey, I welcome you and I am so excited to have you by my side! This year is already in motion with projects, collaborations, and endless learning. Looking at the past year, my current situations, and the direction that I plan to take for 2019 I started to reflect on the opportunities in 2018 and the ones that the future will bring!
"Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. If you hadn't been prepared when the opportunity came along, you wouldn't have been 'lucky'." - Oprah
Do opportunities manifest themselves and appear "out of the blue" or do we have to create them? Does it seem like the same individuals are getting all of the opportunities and you are always getting the short end of the stick? Speaking from my own experiences, I am NOT a lucky person. After graduating from University I knew I couldn't do nothing and hope that a job offer would magically land neatly in the palm of my hands. I had to job hunt, apply, hand in resumes and go through countless interviews. I was creating my own opportunities. On rare occasions, sometimes these opportunities will be the stepping stone to creating new ones along the way. Had I not applied to Make Music Edmonton 2017, I wouldn't have met my team from Diversus Media Group, and in turn I wouldn't have had the opportunity to attend the Chengdu International Sister Cities Youth Music Festival in 2018, and I wouldn't be organizing the project I'm working on now to help fundraise books for the children at the school I visited. Learning how to view "Fear" as my companion, I am excited and enjoy looking for ways to create new opportunities for myself. It isn't easy though and I know that success is never guaranteed.
"When one door closes, a window opens"
Maybe some people are more luckier than others because they are at the 'right place at the right time'. But I feel like there's more to it. In a 10 year study by psychologist Richard Wiseman, he concluded that luck is about being open to and ready for new opportunities aka. being prepared. In other words it all resides within our very own mindset and the way we view the world around us. "Lucky people are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good." (Hoover, 2010) Skill! Not exactly what I would associate luck and opportunity with. It borderlines on what I've talked about in previous posts about being the "life-long student" where skills are continuously being learned and developed. It focuses on personal development. By refining our mindset and what we can offer to others, this will attract opportunities. For example, a young classical pianist who aspires to one day play at Carnegie Hall doesn't just get the opportunity. This is such a rare occurrence already but what do they have to do? They go to school, study composition/theory, endless hours of practicing, perform and repeat. This endless cycle of self improvement is what will get certain ears/eyes turning. Being proactive by searching for ways or opportunities that will get their work and skills noticed will increase success rates!
Not all opportunities will serve us well though and we don't necessarily have to take them all. It is our responsibility and a chance for us to evaluate and decide if we will take them or not. Tapping into our "gut feelings" as Richard Wiseman alluded to is what will help us decide. If things don't pan out the way we want them to, then learn from the circumstances and create new ones that align more with what you envisioned. Live and learn.
This is just my take on opportunities and it would be interesting to see what leads to the ones that will come my way this year! What do you all think? Do you think that opportunities are right within our own power to come to life? Regardless, let's close our eyes, dream BIG and shoot for the top! Leave your comments below!
1) Hoover, Lisa (2010, Feb 16). Create Your Own Luck by Changing Your Perspective. Retrieved from https://lifehacker.com/5472904/create-your-own-luck-by-changing-your-perspective