How to Unlock New Opportunities in Your Life

What opportunity or possibility are you yet to see?

Is there something waiting patiently in the wings that, if you could only notice it, would unlock the next potential for you, your work or your life?

I have always been fascinated by possibility. By the idea that what we can currently see is not necessarily all there is. That the circumstances in front of us are not the complete picture. That something can exist outside our current awareness simply because we haven’t yet developed the eyes to see it.

This is one of the reasons I am so fascinated by quantum theory. Not because quantum physics tells us that our thoughts magically summon whatever we want into existence. It doesn’t. But it does challenge some of our deeply held assumptions about reality being as fixed, predictable and straightforward as it appears.

I find that enormously useful when thinking about human potential.

We Don’t See Everything That Is Possible

We also live inside a world of possibilities, yet we rarely see all of them. We see what our minds have learned to look for. We notice what fits with what we already believe. We interpret what happens through the lens of everything we have experienced before.

Without realising it, we can become so accustomed to looking at life in one particular way that we begin to mistake our view of reality for reality itself.

If you're not happy with what is appearing in an area of your life, one of the most interesting things you can do is change where you're looking.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

Except changing your focus is not simply a matter of telling yourself to think positively or repeating a new affirmation over breakfast. Sometimes we have to remove the barriers, assumptions and rules that are determining what our minds currently allow us to see.

The Invisible Rules Shaping What You See

We have all absorbed these rules throughout our lives.

They came from our families and teachers. From culture, community and the media. From advertising and the messages surrounding us about who we should be, what success should look like, what people like us do and don’t do, what is responsible, sensible, realistic or appropriate.

They also came from our own experiences.

Something happened. We gave it meaning. Then, often without realising it, we carried that meaning forward.

A business failed, so starting again feels dangerous.

Someone broke our heart, so vulnerability becomes something to protect ourselves from.

We were criticised when we stood out, so being visible begins to feel unsafe.

Money was scarce when we were growing up, so earning it becomes associated with struggle.

We watched someone we loved work themselves into the ground, and somewhere along the way we learned that success requires sacrifice.

None of this necessarily arrives as a conscious decision. No five-year-old sits down with a notebook and announces, “Excellent. From today onwards I shall believe that money is difficult to earn and that people who have lots of it are probably questionable human beings.”

We absorb. We observe. We conclude. And then we forget that we concluded anything at all.

The belief quietly becomes part of the scenery.

Left unquestioned, these beliefs can become blinkers. They narrow the field of possibilities available to us because our brain becomes exceptionally good at finding evidence for what we already expect to be true.

We keep noticing the opportunities that fit the old story and overlooking the ones that don’t. We keep having similar thoughts, which generate familiar emotional responses, which influence the actions we take, the conversations we have, the decisions we make and the risks we are prepared to consider.

Eventually, yesterday begins creating today. And, today starts looking remarkably similar to yesterday.

Some would say that many people spend each day reliving their past.

Not because there is nothing new available to them, but because they are approaching the present with the same beliefs, expectations, reactions and behaviours they brought to it yesterday.

This is where things become interesting.

What Could You See Without the Blinkers?

Imagine removing just one of those blinkers.

One belief around abundance, love, health, career, family, business, creativity, success or what you believe you are capable of.

What would you see that you cannot see now? It's almost an impossible question to answer. Until you remove the blinker, you don’t know what it has been preventing you from seeing.

That's the delicious part.

There can be opportunities, people, ideas, solutions and completely different ways forward sitting in plain sight while your current beliefs are quietly telling you, “Nothing to see here.”

How to Unlock New Opportunities in Your Life

So, my friend, would you like to play? Would you like to learn how to unlock new opportunities in your life?

Grab something to write on and with. Find somewhere quiet and comfortable. Close your eyes and take three slow, deep breaths.

Then bring to mind an area of your life where you currently feel stuck, frustrated, limited or simply ready for something more.

Ask yourself: What do I believe about this?

Don’t try to produce an enlightened answer. Write down what actually comes up.

Let’s use financial prosperity as an example.

What do you believe about people who have a great deal of money?

Are they greedy? Arrogant? Selfish? Boastful? Lucky? Untrustworthy? Obsessed with work?

Do you believe people with money have probably compromised something important to get it?

Do you believe money changes people?

Do you believe you have to work extremely hard for it?

That earning more inevitably requires giving up more of your time?

That wanting more makes you ungrateful for what you already have?

That there is only so much to go around?

Then go another layer deeper.

What would having significantly more money mean about you?

Would other people judge you?

Would you feel guilty?

Would you have to become someone you don’t particularly want to be?

Would people expect things from you?

Would you have more responsibility?

Would you worry about losing it?

Would it change your relationships?

Suddenly, something that looked like a straightforward desire for more money has become far more interesting. If one part of you consciously wants greater financial prosperity while another part associates wealth with becoming selfish, unlikeable, overworked or disconnected from the people you love, those two parts are pulling in very different directions.

It isn’t that some mysterious force is punishing you or refusing to send money your way. It is that beliefs influence behaviour.

They influence what you ask for, what you charge, what you negotiate, what you invest in, what you walk away from, what opportunities you notice, what opportunities you dismiss, how visible you are prepared to become and how much success you are willing to comfortably hold.

This applies far beyond money.

You can want an extraordinary relationship while believing love eventually leads to loss.

You can want greater visibility in your career while believing visible people are criticised.

You can want your business to grow while believing growth will steal your freedom.

You can want to create something wildly original while still carrying an old instruction not to draw too much attention to yourself.

You can want the next chapter while unconsciously insisting it must make sense according to everything that has happened in the chapters before it.

Change the Rules, Change What Becomes Possible

This is why changing what we create often begins with becoming curious about the rules we are creating it from.

Not every belief you uncover needs to be dramatically ripped out by the roots. Sometimes simply seeing it is powerful.

You get to ask: Is that actually true?

Is it always true?

Where did I learn it?

Who would I be without it?

What becomes possible if I stop using this belief as a rule?

And then, my favourite question: What can I see from here that I couldn’t see before?

Have a play.

You could discover that what has been missing was never another strategy, another qualification, more effort or more determination. You simply needed a wider field of vision. The next possibility does not always arrive with flashing lights announcing itself as THE ANSWER.

Sometimes it has been quietly waiting in the wings all along.

You just needed to become the person who could see it.

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If this has opened something for you, there are a few ways we can continue the exploration together.

If you’re building your confidence, deepening your self-trust and becoming more unshakeable in the way you work, lead and make decisions, The Unshakeable Woman Blueprint is a free place to begin.

If you’ve already created a great deal of success and find yourself wondering what you want the next chapter of your life to hold, Success Was The Warm-Up will help you start exploring what comes next.

If you have a dream, desire or possibility you are ready to bring to life, The Soft Strength Salon is where we go much deeper. It is six glorious months of coaching with me, alongside other women bringing their own dreams and desires to the room. We work on you, what is getting in the way, what needs to expand, shift or strengthen, and who you need to become to bring what you want into your life.

Sometimes the opportunity has been there all along.

The work is becoming able to see it.

Janelle Ryan is an award-winning personal, career and leadership coach, author and founder of Sky High Coaching. For more than two decades, she has worked with ambitious professionals, established leaders and successful people navigating growth, change and the question of what comes next.

Her work explores the inner architecture behind the lives we create: our beliefs, identity, emotions, patterns, self-trust, decisions and relationship with possibility. She brings together deep personal insight, practical coaching and a fascination with human potential to help people see beyond the thinking that created where they are now and consciously create what they want next.

Janelle is also an international speaker, retreat leader and published author, and is known for her work on internal authority, soft strength, sustainable success and expanding what we believe is possible for ourselves.