“Well, that was awkward.”

How often do you mutter those words?

The idea of being “off” is trained from an early age.  We sense from the visual and verbal feedback of others when our timing is perfect, and struggle from those internal shots of adrenaline when it’s not so perfect.

Timing…

Timing is universal.  We learn as children when our timing stinks – usually with a crack to the rear-end for opening our mouths at the wrong time.  In the medical field, timing is truly the difference between life and death.  In cooking, timing is the difference between delivering the perfect piece of chocolate pie or presenting a soupy mess (yes…I’m experienced in this one).  Every sport has an element of timing – from a home-run swing, to a perfect pass, to every twitch of every muscle creating the difference between breaking an Olympic record or having just another average performance.  Comedians are made famous most often with how well-timed a punch line is delivered.

Examples abound throughout every part of our daily lives as to the importance of timing.  We even attribute our luck, good or bad, to our own timing.  We say we were either “there at the right time, right place” or “right place, wrong time”.

Mark Twain once wrote, “I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.”  One of history’s successful authors would appear, to those of us looking back over his life, to have had plenty of good timing and an ample supply of opportunities.  Yet in Twain’s own words, his timing wasn’t always perfect and, in fact, he missed many opportunities along the way.

For me, many of these missed chances lie in the awkward moments.

We’ve all heard the sayings “dare to be different” and “nothing worth having comes easy”, etc.  Thomas Edison said it best, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”  These opportunities…these life-changing, breathtaking nanoseconds often sneak up on you and look nothing like our everyday lives; and they certainly don’t look like something much fun.  Nope…instead they look like a whole bunch of work.  But take those chances and grab on to those moments – you’ll find you change the portrait you’re painting for your own life.  And timing will be what colors between the lines of your story.

A seized opportunity is the product of perfect timing, while missed opportunities are a lack of such.  And perhaps opportunity was knocking when one of those awkward moments popped up.  Think about that…the next time you’re inclined to mutter those words “that was awkward”, take a mental picture of exactly what is going on at the time.  Your window of opportunity to capitalize on a potential opportunity is closing fast.  Could this be that seize-the-day moment that could change your path?  And then, don’t think much about it…don’t let the moment pass.  Grab it!

Commercials often depict a nice-looking man and woman, randomly at the store who catch each others’ glances.  The commercials continue to seize the day – showing these two strangers talking and laughing after that awkward moment passes.  Too often in real life, those moments are left in the aisles of grocery stores with both people thinking, “what if I’d just said ‘hi’”.  These mists of time present themselves every day.  We all have many more opportunities to make a difference than we know.  Wouldn’t you prefer to make the most of those opportunities?

Try it today.  Snap that mental picture when you know something from within is calling you to take a simple step.  Play it out quickly in your mind as to how you’ll grab that opportunity.  Then do it.  Make those awkward moments life-changing…and watch just how often these moments present themselves.

You too will believe – timing truly is everything.

 

Best

Tim