Treat every opportunity as if it’s real. Many won’t be but a few will be. All it takes is a few. Actually, all it takes is one – the right one – and you’re off. The difficulty is knowing when to trudge on, ramp up, kick back, or let go. Sometimes you have to let go because what looked like an opportunity was a dead end. You let go of that specifc thing but not the dream or goal. How to know when to let go? What does opportunity look like? When will opportunity come? Keep sowing the seeds that foster opportunities; you truly don’t know when or where they’ll sprout. Keep looking for openings – become the mouse who can slip through openings too tiny to believe; become water lapping against the shore slowly eroding the barrier; become the sun that lights every day. Every day that you wake up is another opportunity. Begin again. Continue on. “I got three messages,” an exhausted and happy Nyad told reporters. Her face was sunburned and swollen. “One is we should never, ever give up. Two is you never are too old to chase your dreams. Three is it looks like a solitary sport, but it’s a team,” she said.
It’s analyzing the data and going with your gut. It’s being persistent, tenacious and focused (with breaks now and then; release, relax, then…back at it).
Do you want your absolute dream or can you be satisfied with a version of your dream?
Must it be the whole pie or will a slice of it or a sliver or the ingredients to make the pie suffice? You will make the pie, won’t you?
Can you recognize it if it’s not packaged the way you thought it would be?
Are you prepared to seize it even if you expected it to turn up months ago and it comes in a phone call on a Friday afternoon that you missed and have to wait a long, agonizing weekend to pursue?
‘Never, ever give up:’ Diana Nyad completes historic Cuba-to-Florida swim by Matt Sloane, Jason Hanna and Dana Ford, CNN