THE TRUTH ABOUT OPPORTUNITIES

Almost everybody is looking for opportunities to earn a living, to make his or her life better. It is important therefore to understand how to spot an opportunity so that you don’t waste too much time and other resources looking for an opportunity or trying to turn what you think is an opportunity into something useful.  In this post you will learn a big picture of what opportunities are so that your efforts to spot and turn opportunities into real money making activities more enjoyable and fruitful.

Here are some of important facts to remember about opportunities:-

Opportunities are not always positive:  

Opportunities do not exist on positive situations like increase in demand for a certain service, economic development of a certain place etc. Even when situations seem to go in a negative way, there are still opportunities.  For example, when there is economic downturn, you can spot an opportunity to help people manage their finances more wisely or you can even help people find jobs in a unique way after you have studied the economy well.

You can also learn from the difficulties you are facing and use them as opportunity to establish an enterprise that would solve same type of difficulties you are facing for other people.

For example, a student who found it very difficult to access studying materials on the internet because of electricity and internet connection are not reliable in his place, could help himself and others by using solar technology to power his computer and establish a local server that stores various information when network is available , and when there is no network he can retrieve data from his computer as a local server.

You don’t create opportunities: 

Sometimes, some people waste a lot of time thinking how they can create opportunities for themselves, while the fact is that we don’t create opportunities, we just SPOT them. 

It is important to note this so that you can concentrate on observing and learning about the environment you are in. Read newspaper, blogs, watch TV, listen to radio, visit different places, network with people, and while you do so, stay open minded to find what is there that you can use to make a living.

Opportunity is simply the situation that creates need for a certain solution. You should therefore be able to identify what is the ‘problem’- what is the issue that needs attention for solution. There are always issues or problems in our world.

You need a strategy:  There is difference between spotting an opportunity and turning the opportunity into income earning activity. So don’t be confused, an opportunity alone doesn’t make a living, you need to set targets what you want to do with a particular opportunity and you need to identify activities you will need to undertake to make the opportunity a real income generating activity. This why for every opportunity you need a strategy. 

A strategy in its simple form is a list of targets/objectives you want to achieve with the opportunity you have spotted, identify what activities you need to do to achieve such targets, how you will manage such activities you have identified –making it clear who is responsible for what activities, and how much of other resources you will need, then make a plan of how you will be able to evaluate whether you are succeeding or not. The strategy is needed to ensure sustainability of your projects.

Recognize risks involved in the opportunity: Because it is an opportunity, it doesn’t mean that there will be no risks involved. It is your duty to study very well the opportunity and activities needed to materialize the opportunity so that you know the risks involved. Risks involved do not mean you should let the opportunity go,  remember “You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved. They go together”. – Earl Nightingale