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There will be opportunities coming along your way, are you grabbing them or kicking them off.

Ask this question again and again: Are you flexible in your approach?

If no, then there is a challenge!!

How many times we let go of an opportunity believing this might not be a real opportunity, but just a different perspective if we allow ourselves to look at the same situation, the same opportunity might be a small milestone to reach our destination.

Now, During my conversation with one of my mentee, I realized she was very much specific with the kind of role she wants. Keeping that in her mind she has already rejected two offers. She has also taken advice from a senior HR fellow who has asked to wait for the right opportunity and not to grab. In that process, she has wasted 6-7 months already. If that opportunity she would have grabbed she would have already come out of her career break. There would have been a list of bonus that would have accompanied with her saying yes to that opportunity:

• Pressing a pause button to career break should have been her priority and with that, she would no longer have been into financial constraints and she would have been paying her own rent and bills. Getting out of being a liability over parents should have been a focus.
• The 6 precious months would not have gone in waste. Sitting idle, taking up free courses due to financial constraints and expecting a job anytime soon is like wasting another 6 months. We need to learn and invest in ourself in order to grow. We need to understand that the contents that come from free courses and the contents that come from paid courses have a hell lot of difference. What we learn and where we are investing our time and energy is crucial. We cannot afford to play with our career and time now.
• After performing or even outperforming in that particular organization, maybe after a year with a good network and repo she would have powerfully gone ahead and asked for her kind of role that she was looking at. If one believes to be a right candidate, patience and performance speak way louder. Getting a dream role after a year is way better than sitting idle for a year. 
• While we are working, we have already come out of a sabbatical phase. That is always a stronger position rather than staying into a sabbatical phase for long. Once we have started working we are way more confident while applying for the kind of roles we are looking for and that ends up in a win-win situation.
• Lastly, it is crucial to rethink and reconsider who we are looking up to for bits of advice. Are they the right kind of people to advise? If we end up taking wrong advice which was a reason in this case too, we end up losing time. Time is precious, let us not play with that. Time gone is gone!!

So, how are we balancing the roles with the opportunities that are coming along our way?

I have nowhere asked to change your destination or goal that you have for yourself, but the important part is strategizing the entire path. The crossroad where we stand today till our destination is a zig-zag route. We shall stop expecting a straight path to the destination.  A little flexibility in our approach can be a game changer.

Wise people figure out the way to reach the destination, with flexibility and with strategies, for them the route is conveniently irrelevant.

- By Neha Tripathi (Entrepreneur, Speaker, Trainer, Writer)