Training the Muscle of Opportunity

How to practice seeing possibility when life closes doors

This is a paid companion for What Is Your Purpose? — Issue #12: Veronica Llorca-Smith

Have you wondered why others get opportunities while you don’t get any?

At some point in my life I did.

Opportunities rarely arrive dressed as opportunities. More often, they come disguised as detours, rejections, or disruptions that break the flow of your plans.

That’s why most of us miss them.

Not because we aren’t capable, but because our attention is focused on what’s closing rather than what’s opening.

The good news is that noticing opportunities isn’t luck. It’s a muscle. A skill we can strengthen with practice, the same way Veronica transformed a hard season into the seed of her creative life. And the more we practice, the quicker our minds shift from seeing obstacles to spotting new doors.

This companion is your training ground. A space to build the reflex of looking for what’s possible, especially in moments that feel like setbacks.

Let’s dive in.

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⚡ Recap: Shift to Possibility

You don’t need to control every outcome. You need to train your lens. What feels like loss often hides the start of something else. The skill is not in forcing optimism but in exercising the muscle that asks, “What can grow from here?”

When setbacks happen, your nervous system tightens. The default is to replay what went wrong, to anchor on the door that closed. But that fixation drains energy you could be using to spot what’s still available. By training yourself to shift attention outward, you create space for movement instead of stagnation.

This isn’t about pretending every challenge is a gift. It’s about recognizing that within every disruption, there’s at least one lever you can pull: a connection, a moment of time freed up, a chance to test a new path. Opportunity doesn’t erase difficulty, but it reshapes how you carry it.

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🛠 Application: Rewiring for Opportunity

When things don’t go your way, the instinct is to contract: frustration, self-doubt, or a loop of “Why me?”

That reaction is natural, but it blocks the small signals of opportunity. This exercise helps you redirect your attention.