In a world as big as ours, there’s an unlimited amount of opportunities.
Every email you open, every streetcorner you turn, each stranger you look in the eye in passing, every book someone recommends:
You never know what opportunities you’ll encounter when you make a decision and you engage with a person or a thing or a suggestion.
And wherever you go, you’ll always meet opportunities.
But it can be hard to figure out which opportunities are worth diving into.
If you take them all on, you’ll end up adrift , rudderless and directionless, and ultimately you’ll burn out.
Following too many opportunities is a major cause of procrastination and stuckness (i.e. death by opportunity).
And there’s so many of them, all so interesting or filled with potential!
Should you take on that client?
Have that conversation you’ve been wanting to have?
Invest in that coach or that car or that SEO service?
Accept the invitation to speak at an event?
Dig through your journals from last year?
Read that book that your gut tells you will cause a big shift for you somehow?
Reply to that email you haven’t had the nerves yet to reply to?
Go on that retreat, go to that conference?
With so many choices and each with their own opportunities, how do we decide which of them ought to be in our lives or not?
If ever you’ve felt overwhelmed, or if ever you’ve gotten off course by choosing certain opportunities, the answer is:
Choose those opportunities that are aligned with your objectives, and that stand a chance to directly contribute to you reaching your objectives.
Because if you analyse opportunities and their potential returns logically, instead of solely following your instinct and wishful thinking, you’ll realise that a lot of things you could say yes to, would come with one of two problems:
Either they come at an unacceptable cost, or they only contribute to your goals in an indirect, long-term, or tenously proven way (i.e. wishful thinking).
So use the question "Does saying yes to this directly contribute to my goals?" as the razor for keeping your mind clear and your calendar in shape for productivity.
That’s the antidote to overwhelm, ‘death by opportunity’, and unfulfilling results, especially if you then also bias for activities that are firmly in your Zone of Genius, i.e. the things that nobody could do quite the way you do them.
Using that razor is obvious and simple as a concept, but very tricky to put into practice. Works though, once you get the hang of saying no to things.
Whatever goes in your mix of objectives (hobbies, revenue, relationships, fun or sales or fame or happiness etc etc), let that mix of objectives be your north star for decisions and the opportunities that you choose to act on.
Everything that’s not aligned, that’s outside your ZoG or comes at a high cost or long-term payback:
Best ask yourself long and hard whether you want to go for it, be as rational about it as you can, and get rid of opportunities that aren't ideal.
Because everything that’s not aligned with your objectives, and doesn’t directly contribute to reaching them, will very likely prevent you from reaching them, or at the very least, distract you and slow you down. And making a business work and grow is a slow enough process as it is.