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Growth Rarely Happens on Your Terms


One of the things I’ve noticed when talking with people about opportunity is how strongly we try to protect situations that feel good.

If we have a good job, a good environment, or a good routine, we naturally want to keep it exactly the way it is. We invest energy trying to preserve what we already have. And honestly, that makes sense. When something in life feels stable and positive, the last thing most of us want is disruption.

But life doesn’t always work that way.

Sometimes opportunity arrives in a way that forces us to change something we weren’t ready to change.

And that can be uncomfortable.

When Opportunity Disrupts Your Comfort

Think about the effort people put into maintaining a situation that works for them. If you’re in a good role, with supportive colleagues and a predictable environment, you often try to maximize that position without disturbing it.

You look for ways to grow while keeping everything else intact.

The challenge comes when an opportunity appears that requires you to do something completely different.

Suddenly, the situation that once felt secure becomes uncertain.

Instead of seeing the new opportunity as growth, many of us see it as disruption.

And that’s when our mindset begins to shift toward frustration.

Wanting Growth on Our Own Terms

At one point early in my career, I experienced this firsthand.

I was working in a situation that I believed was ideal. I had a great supervisor, supportive coworkers, and a location that worked well for me. Everything seemed to be lined up exactly the way I wanted.

At the same time, I wanted to go to graduate school.

My plan was simple: take educational leave so that I could attend school and then return to the same position afterward. In my mind, that was the perfect arrangement. I would grow professionally without disrupting the situation I already had.

The problem was that the opportunity didn’t unfold the way I expected.

By the time the possibility of educational leave became available, my circumstances had already changed.

And I remember spending a lot of time feeling frustrated about it.

Looking back, I realize something important: it wasn’t just the change that bothered me.

It was the fact that the change wasn’t happening on my terms.

The Trap of a Fixed Mindset

This is a trap many of us fall into.

When we believe there is only one way for things to work out, any deviation from that path feels like a loss.

We become so focused on what didn’t happen the way we wanted that we stop paying attention to what might be possible in the new situation.

Instead of asking:

“How can I maximize this opportunity?”

we spend our time thinking about what should have happened instead.

I’ll admit, it took me some time to get past that mindset.

For about the first year, I was still caught up in what I thought I had lost.

But eventually I started to see something differently.

The Opportunity Hidden Inside the Change

The new situation I found myself in allowed me to learn skills that I would never have gained in my previous role.

Those skills later became extremely valuable for my next step professionally.

At the time, I couldn’t see that.

All I could see was that things hadn’t worked out the way I originally planned.

But with hindsight, it became clear that what felt like disruption was actually preparation.

Sometimes the opportunity that frustrates you in the moment becomes the opportunity that benefits you the most in the long run.

A Different Way to Think About Change

It’s natural to want growth on our own terms.

There’s nothing wrong with that instinct.

But life doesn’t always present opportunity in a way that aligns perfectly with our expectations.

Sometimes the door that opens requires us to step into unfamiliar territory.

And when that happens, we have a choice.

We can focus on how the situation changed in ways we didn’t want…

Or we can ask ourselves a more useful question:

“How can I maximize this opportunity?”

Because what feels like a setback today may actually be positioning you for something greater tomorrow.

Final Thought

Before getting frustrated about how circumstances change, take a moment to step back and look at the bigger picture.

The opportunity you didn’t expect might be the one that gives you the skills, perspective, or experience that prepares you for your next chapter.

Growth doesn’t always happen on your terms.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t exactly what you needed.

Explore More from The Anthony Reeves Experience

If you enjoy reflections on career growth, life transitions, and professional insight, explore more content from The Anthony Reeves Experience.

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