Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to do something, say, speak to someone, but then somehow convinced yourself you’d do it later when you got back in 5 minutes? Well, I have many times. And have you noticed that somehow, almost every time, that person isn’t where you left them after 5 minutes, or is gone or is talking with someone else and so you don’t go talk to them?

I get this often. I procrastinate on acting on an opportunity just to find out that later the opportunity has vanished. In fact, this happened to me so many times that I now pay real close attention to these kind of situation, to the thought patterns they elicit.

I’ve even experimented with recognising my thoughts in these situations and intentionally not doing anything and moving on, to see if when I came back I still had the opportunity to do what I had wanted to do moments ago.

For example I was once running on a Saturday morning and I saw this man on a hammock with a sleeping bag. It intrigued me and I wanted to ask the man what he was doing. I didn’t, but recognised that I was debating whether to do it or not. I kept on running. And lo and behold, minutes later when I passed by the same path, the man and his hammock was gone. My opportunity to ask him what he was doing disappeared.

Through enough of these observations, with consistent results, I’ve come to the conclusion that every opportunity I have is unique and that if I don’t take it while I can, I can be 100% sure that I will never again have the same opportunity. Realising this has been a source of much more effective action. I know this is common sense, but knowing something is not the same thing as feeling it and acting on it.

How many times have you said you’d do something later and never done it? How many times have you wanted to do something and rationalised your way out of doing it, only to find out you can’t even do it anymore?

If I want to do something that is dependant on external situations and I want to act, I tell myself that I have to do it now or not do it at all. Because the opportunity I have now is unique and I will never have the same exact conditions in my life. This may seem extreme but it is a fact that every situation is unique. Why would you waste your time, your most precious resource, procrastinating on something you can do now and not have to deal with later? I often tell myself that my future self will want to deal with it. But that is just me misleading myself. My future self will deal with it in the same way I deal with it now.

So when you want to do something and the opportunity to do it is here, do it now, act!

Opportunity doesn’t wait for you to be ready, it’s now of never, later is too late, she’ll be gone.