Life is a journey and like all journeys the road we end up traveling is often different than what we envisioned from the start. While many people dutifully recite the old axiom about knocking on the door of opportunity, I suggest something different. The doors of opportunity are always open to us. It’s not a matter of knocking on them. It’s a matter of making decisions in our lives that keep them open because they close on their own as a result of the choices we make as we move through life.

Therefore, our main objective is to keep as many of them open for as long as possible. Doing so will grant us multiple pathways to the greatest level of personal success. it’s easy to talk about make the right choices, but often we struggle with it because of a lack of clarity concerning our destination. Two ways to deal with this uncertainty is by focusing on goals and keeping an open mind toward improving.

Focus on Goals

Our goals must be big and contain a plan of action. If you set small goals you get small results. The worst thing a person can do if they truly wish to achieve high levels of success is to set goals they know they can achieve. Large goals can seem scary which is why a plan of action is needed. Ever hear the question how do you eat and elephant? Or even better the answer of “one bite at a time.” If you want to reach anything over your head you need to build a ladder. Name your goal, set a date, and then build the steps to get there. That will help, but you will still need to push to get there. That is when you have to trust the process that you built and face the obstacles with an open mind.

Keeping an Open Mind

If we are to push through struggles and obstacles we encounter on the way to reaching our goals, keeping an open mind that can adjust our perspective concerning mistakes and failure. The road to success will be plagued with both. The only way to keep doors open and success in our grasp is to see them for what they are, experiences that offer us the opportunity to learn and get better. Whenever we encounter a setback it is important to learn in an effort to move forward. If we run into the ultimate set back and don’t achieve our goal, we need to look at how far we have grown rather than focusing on the one time failure.

Look, doors won’t just open because you knock. Sometimes you have to kick them open by focusing, working hard, and learning from mistakes and failures. The inability to make use of opportunity isn’t because the door is locked. Even an unlocked door won’t open if you don’t push hard enough. Check out the three minute video below to hear more about this. Better yet, let me know what you think in the comments and consider sharing and subscribing if you found some value!