I both simultaneously love and hate this quote. If you do too then there may be something worth delving into.
Not Every Opportunity is for You
I’m a millennial, born in the 1980s, we are the generation that was told you can do everything, have everything, be everything. We need to make the most of the freedoms that our mothers, grandmothers and the women who have gone before us fought so hard for. I know that life isn’t perfect, inequity is still a major issue, the freedoms some have aren’t had by all, but I still feel blessed that I was born in my generation and not that of my grandparents. I love the possibilities that we have, that we are a generation of women that have had so many more options for our lives. However, we can sometimes feel the pressure that we must take every opportunity as there are many that aren’t given any.
Each time an opportunity presents itself you, you don’t need to take it. You need to take the opportunities that are right for you personally based upon your individual strengths, goals, stage of life, resources, interests, and desires. You need to have a very clear understanding and vision for your life to ensure that you doing what is best for you right now.
There is a “have it all” mentality in the world that leads us to believe that we need to have it all at the same time. If you are not simultaneously running a marathon and a company, baking organic sugar free snacks for your children whilst taking them to piano, soccer and ballet lessons, having deep and satisfying connections with friends and your partner, maintaining a daily spiritual practice, and juggling the mental load then you’re not living up to the opportunities afforded to your generation or your potential. Written down this seems like an overwhelming amount to handle all at once, but if we delve into our expectations of ourselves, it’s likely not much more than our daily to-dos.
Consider your goals and your life, are there some opportunities that you have taken just because they presented themselves and you felt they were too good not to take, rather than it being something you truly wanted in your life. Is there a way to shed these?
Enjoy the Journey
Have you ever stepped out your goals in a five-year plan, or even a twelve-month plan and realised that the first half of the planner is very busy and that you’ll achieve everything in half the timeframe. I’m all for not doing things slower than necessary, but sometimes we rush through and don’t really enjoy the journey. How many times have we heard that “life is about the journey, not the destination”? We agree with the sentiment, then continue on our hurried way, not fully enjoying each day. We don’t need to have everything at once, we can stagger the things we want and really embrace the stages of life as we progress.
Life is not a competition against the world, your frenemies, siblings, whoever it may be. Sometimes we think that we need to do everything and have everything all at once as we’re playing catch up or trying to “keep ahead”. Are you unnecessarily comparing yourself to the perfect social media image of different people – do you want a house (or an upgraded house) like one person, professional success like another, deep and wide social connections like a third and Olympian-esque fitness like another. Slow down, you don’t need to be all these things all at one, not even the people you are comparing yourself to are all these things at once.
Are you enjoying your life enough? Are you trying to have too much all at once leaving you with little or no room for fun? Are you worried about the next stage before you’re even in it?
Sit down and review your life, goals and dreams. Are you trying to achieve too much right now? What could be pushed back so that you have time and space to enjoy yourself more?
Stage of Life
What is important to us can significantly change based upon the stage of life we are in. Something that was right for us may no longer be so and it may be the time for something that wasn’t right in the past. We need to fully see the blessings and opportunities that come our way and decide what is right for us to pursue right now in this stage of life. If we don’t we will feel out of whack, overwhelmed and tangled, living a disjointed life.
Some things you want may be better off in different stages of life or they may look substantially different. The goal of “spending more time with friends” in one stage of life may look like going out dancing with girlfriends to the early hours of the morning in one stage of life and in another it may be having a coffee at the playground while your toddlers play. You cannot force your life to look the same throughout each season, you need to recognise where you are, what you want and respond to that.
We may receive an opportunity that we would love to take, however we know it is probably not best for our current season of life. We are afraid that if we don’t take it now, it will never come by again. Have the confidence in yourself that you made the opportunity happen, and you can make it happen again, when the time is right for you. Only you know your personal situation, but do not let yourself be pushed into something you know is not for you right now, just because you’re afraid you mightn’t get it later.
Our lives are changing at an ever-increasing rate and it’s important that we are regularly reviewing our dream life and goals to ensure that they are still appropriate given our stage of life. We also need to ensure that we are reviewing our sub-goals (ie the steps to get to our goals / dream life) as whilst the overarching dream may still hold true the way we go about achieving it may need to change. Review yours to ensure you’re on the right path.
“Not Now” is not “No”
We need to realise that “not now” is not a “no”. We may have a goal that we really want to achieve, however we have realised and recognised that this is not for this stage of life. This step alone can be so difficult, and it may feel like you’re giving up on yourself and your dreams, but you’re really not. You’re recognising exactly what is important to you right now and ensuring that is getting your time, energy, your resources.
Just because something you want is a “not now” it doesn’t mean that you must ignore its existence, push it to the back of your mind and pretend you don’t want it. Think about it, just because it’s not something for this season of your life is there something you could do that will make it easier to achieve when the season is right? It may be the tiniest step forward or it may even be holding your ground and not going backwards.
One of my dreams is that when my children have grown up and left home that they come home on Sundays for a long lunch and to catch up. I have primary school aged children, so we are at best 15-20 years off this occurring. However, just because this isn’t part of my current stage of life it doesn’t mean that I ignore this dream. The small decisions and choices I’m making now to show my children that family is important and fun, creates a life in which we all value family and time together. We need to remember that how we live our lives, what we give our time, energy, financial resources and focus to, is teaching our children what is important in life. If you don’t give your children time and focus now, thereby teaching them that they and family is important, they are very unlikely to suddenly decide as adults that it is.
You may have a goal that you want to achieve later and there is absolutely nothing you can do not to inch this forward or not go backwards in it. However, could you refine the dream? Could you focus on it and determine exactly what you want and how you’re going to achieve it? Could you break it down into sub-goals and put ideal timeframes around when you are going to action these? If you’re religious, could you pray about this? Could you work out exactly what you will need to be able to tackle the goal?
These may not feel like much but the more we focus on, refine and make a dream real in our minds the easier it will be to physically achieve it once the time comes. This will also help us to feel like we are moving forward, even if it is ever so slightly, but progress is progress.
Remember:
1. Not every opportunity is for you;
2. Life is a journey to be enjoyed;
3. Some things are just not for this stage of life; and
4. “Not now” is not “no”.
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