What is a once in a lifetime opportunity? It’s a chance, opportunity, or a circumstance that is likely to happen only once in your lifetime. It’s especially important that you take advantage of these moments and seize them as much as you possibly can.
Even though opportunities are everywhere, phenomenally good opportunities don’t happen often. They come around once every blue moon. There are many examples of these rare opportunities that are in your life, that I will cover below. You have no idea how many of times I regretted missing out on these opportunities.
What you need to know is that even if you do miss out, do not feel rushed to chase it after the fact. It’s ok to be a late adopter but it’s not OK to feel rushed to go with a decision. Rushed decisions are rarely right. When you make a rushed decision, it has the highest chances of everything crashing down on you by the end.
There are golden once in a lifetime opportunities that can quickly turn sour when you have a fear of missing out mentality. So much money, time, and effort was lost because they didn’t want to miss out. Opportunities rarely only have a small window of time for you to take advantage of.
You usually have at least a day to think things through before thinking about your next line of attack. Remember that two years ago led to your life today. It usually takes weeks, months, if not years before an opportunity is truly gone into thin air. Don’t believe any of the “limited time offer” signs that you see every single day.
They’re just trying to pressure you into making a bad decision. Willfully ignore them and carry on with life like nothing happened.
Examples of Once in a Lifetime Opportunity
Before you think about seizing a once in a lifetime opportunity, you have to recognize what they are. Therefore, it’s necessary to go over some examples so that you can get a feel so the next big thing that passes your way.
One example of a once in a lifetime opportunity is the ability to SMASH that social share button and post to your favorite social media! Your friends could definitely learn from examples of golden opportunities so that they don’t miss out as well. Let’s share the wealth together and we can all get better together.
So with that said, let’s go into the concrete examples.
1) The Coronavirus Pandemic is a Once in a Lifetime Opportunity
The coronavirus pandemic was a bad pandemic that decimated and destroyed so many peoples’ lives. It truly was an awful virus that claimed many people’s lives and made life significantly worse. While this is a bad side of it, there is also a good side to it as well.
It made people aware of just how fragile human systems are to combat a major global pandemic. We are now more educated to take care of our health going forward. Additionally, the pandemic created the absolute best stock buying opportunity in the history of the world.
So many people became millionaires as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. It also educated so many people on personal finance that the savings rate shot up to 33.7% in April 2020. It’s at 27.6% as of March 2021. It was a wake up call and the biggest once in a lifetime opportunity to educate people on personal finance.
It took an entire pandemic to change America’s excessive consumerism mindset, but it was way better late than never.
2) Promotions
A former girl coworker almost talked herself out of a promotion. Whether it’s risky or not, promotions are an example of a once in a lifetime opportunity. Her boss asked her to be a higher up in another team but she said “I don’t think that I can do it”. Only when her boss encouraged her to accept did she finally accept.
If you feel like a promotion is too “high grade” for you because you don’t fully understand how to carry out the responsibilities, it’s better to say yes and figure it out later. If you’re not going to fulfill the needs of the company, the company will find someone else to fill that need.
They chose you to be higher up than where you are now. They didn’t choose anybody else. That means something. Don’t miss out on an opportunity that could change your life for the better. Take the chance and take risks. You are more than capable of making your own luck and creating success.
3) Stock Market
A once in a lifetime opportunity in the stock market was GameStop trading. While I don’t recommending going for these high flyer wins, that was an example of an opportunity that is unlikely to happen often. Will something like that happen again in the future? Absolutely, there’s no doubt in my mind.
However, instead of looking for the next opportunity, it’s easier to take advantage of the one right in front of you. There were overnight millionaires from that one trade alone. While I don’t recommend these types of behaviors because they have a high chance of causing bankruptcies, it is an example.
I recommend consistently investing in a broad market index over the long term. It’s the most proven route to build wealth. I didn’t take advantage of the mania back then and I have no regrets. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other strategies available to make money.
4) Starting a Business
When you get the chance to work and start a business, you take it. What’s even better is if you have the option to start a business on the side while you have a day job. Then you have no risk and unlimited upside potential. When Jeff Bezos started Amazon, he didn’t want to miss out on something that could revolutionize the world.
This has a very high risk and chance of failure. It will be one of the hardest things you could ever potentially do. However, it could very well be the adventure of a lifetime and be the most important thing you’ll ever do in your life. It’s easier to start a business when you’re younger.
Once you have dependents, kids, and a spouse, it’s more difficult to pursue a business opportunity. They depend on your livelihood just to survive. You can’t just take yourself into consideration, you have to take others into consideration as well.
Therefore, when you get that chance to start something that can revolutionize people’s lives, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. It’s even better if you can start a business with no risk of bankruptcy, such as when you start a side business while still working a job.
5) Working Abroad
This is the best example of a once in a lifetime opportunity. My dad had the option to work abroad in the United States as part of a promotion. It would have meant that he would have given up his comfortable life to start a new and exciting one. The company gave him a variety of choices.
The choices were to work in Australia, South America, the United States, or Europe. He chose the United States. To this day, I have no idea how he had the confidence to take the once in a lifetime opportunity. Just like that. He was way past the “I have to prove myself” phase of his career.
He was in the “it’s time to coast to my retirement” phase of his career. There was no need to put in additional hours and work that hard anymore. Yet, he still chose to do so anyway. It was quite impressive and I thank my lucky stars that he did something like that. I wouldn’t be here today if he didn’t.
Opportunities in America has been so phenomenal and fantastic to me. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world and wouldn’t have it any other way. When you get the chance to work abroad with no risk, there’s little reason why you shouldn’t take it. This was such a wild adventure of a life that I wouldn’t trade for anything else.
Characteristic of a Once in a Lifetime Opportunity
There’s a good rule of thumb to figure out if something is a once in a lifetime opportunity or not. The most obvious way to tell is if something is emotionally charging. If you want to start a business, there’s a certain feeling that you get that excites you to even think about starting one in that industry.
It reverberates and tingles throughout your entire body. You just know it. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you haven’t felt it yet. You just feel a juice of emotions running through your entire body and get goosebumps. That’s a tell that you are onto the opportunity of a lifetime.
Remember that we are naturally intuitive. We just feel and sense when something is right or wrong. The emotions don’t have to be positive or negative. It can be either. I didn’t know it at the time but I should have recognized that the bad feeling that I felt during the coronavirus pandemic was a blessing in disguise.
There’s few things in the world that makes you feel absolutely good or absolutely terrible. When something makes you feel a huge spark of emotions, that’s a sign you’re onto something terrible or wonderful. When my dad’s company offered him a promotion to move across the world to work, it was scary.
We didn’t know what was going to happen. Luckily, my parents didn’t involve me in the decision process. My 7 year old self would have told them to not do it. I was comfortable with my group of friends and change would have terrified me, especially such a drastic one.
Either way, the fact that we actually cared about the decision showed that it wasn’t something to be taken likely.
It’s Great Once in a Lifetime Opportunities are Everywhere
The thing is, once in a lifetime opportunities are EVERYWHERE. You just have to find it. While it is everywhere, what’s important to remember is that it doesn’t happen often. There’s no other GameStop stories that appeared in front of the Wall Street Journal, four months after the fact.
Something like that may not happen for another year, five, or ten years. While there is a chance that it may never happen again, I believe that it will happen again. Maybe not in the exact same way, but the same way in some shape of form. I could be completely wrong but I don’t believe that I am.
It’s completely OK if you miss some of the opportunities because they are everywhere. As long as you don’t miss ALL of them, you are on the right path. However, the burden and homework is still on you. You just gotta go out and find these opportunities and seize them when you can.
I know I’m going to miss opportunities today, tomorrow, next week, month, etc. However, I know I’m not going to miss all of the opportunities between now and then. That’s how it is for everybody else, as well. There’s always plenty of time to take advantage of the future.
You now know some examples of once in a lifetime opportunities so that you don’t miss out in the future. The next golden opportunities might not look anything remotely similar to the things above. However, if they do look similar, you have no excuses but to take advantage of it if you can.
Every decision does come with risk and you should definitely do your own research. I’m just saying that taking advantage of opportunities might not be a bad decision.
Don’t Let Fear Stop You From Seizing Once in a Lifetime Opportunities
Even though once in a lifetime opportunities are scary, you may just be in for the adventure of a lifetime. It could be one of the most important decisions you make in your entire life. Ignore if others are telling you that it is a crazy or a bad decision. Evaluate if it’s crazy to you before you make the decision.
Whether the decision turns out good or bad, it doesn’t matter. At least you did something interesting with your life. Now, I’m not saying to always take the risk, even if it means you’ll be bankrupt. I’m saying to carefully evaluate it and take it seriously before passing on it.
Once you have kids or people who are dependent on you, it’s near impossible to go for it. It’s not your decision to make anymore, it’s your family’s. If you ignore their pleas, opinions, and thoughts, then you are being selfish. It’s a spot where you almost have to choice but to not take the once in a lifetime opportunity.
If you are not in that state of life, then take risks. Travel. See the world. There’s only a limited time for when you can live a lifestyle like this. Now’s the time to not let fear hold you back. While fear serves as an evolutionary advantage, it sometimes does more harm than good.
Change can be a scary thing but it can be an exciting and wonderful thing. While change is scary, you want to know what’s even scarier? Staying in the exact same spot for all of eternity. It’s downright frustrating when you have no power to change anything.
When a once in a lifetime opportunity comes along, it may just well be worth it to seize it and never let go.
