Do You Recognize Pivotal Moments When They Happen?

Pivotal moments. How often do they happen? What do they mean? Should you act upon them. And possibly the most important question of all — Do you recognize them when they happen?

We all have what I’m calling pivotal moments in our lives, like the one I talk about in this video. Some of them slam you in the face, and you’d have to be in a coma to miss them.

Job offers, being fired or laid off from your job, marriage proposals — any one of these would be hard to miss. In fact, they’re so big you may not see them as pivotal moments. Ironic, isn’t it? But they are. They all represent a crossroad in your life.

But what about more subtle pivotal moments? Often these moments can all but blend into our regular activities on any given day and be easy to miss unless you’re paying attention.

Seemingly simple, quiet, unimposing events fly under our radar. Any one of them could represent a sea change in your life if you were to stop and notice. Any one of them might be a pivotal moment.

A crossroad.

A fork in the road.

A decision-making time.

Spotting What’s Hiding In Plain Sight

Any time you must make a choice, decide which direction you want to go, you’re looking at a pivotal moment.

As with my son’s illness when he was seven, it may be something that forces you to see what you’d been missing before. When my son got spinal meningitis, suddenly I was faced with a decision. Something had to be removed from my full plate so that what was most important to me in my life, my son, my family, got the time and attention they deserved.

Maybe I would have realized I needed to reprioritize my life on my own, but his illness was a very real, impossible-to-miss, pivotal moment.

My family resumed that place of importance I’d been devoting to my training. It’s not that my training wasn’t important. It was just that my son was more important than my training.

That moment was, for me, a pivotal moment.

Pivotal Moments Take Many Forms

Not every pivotal moment you encounter will be obvious. Some are subtle, like reading a notice asking for volunteers at an animal shelter.

The elimination of your job, on the other hand, commands your attention.

But what if you decided to look into that volunteer service? What if you decided to do it?

What might that decision lead to over time? Who knows? Maybe you’d end up opening your own animal rescue service. You might become a vocal advocate for abused and homeless animals.

That decision, or not, to take up the mantel of volunteering represents a pivotal moment, no matter how inconsequential it seemed at first glance.

Every decision you make means you’ve rejected another choice.

Every path you choose means you’ve discarded a different one.

Every decision, life-altering or not, is a pivotal moment in your life.

The only question is which way will you pivot.

Don’t Let The Moment Pass Unnoticed

Let me leave you with this message: Start paying attention to the choices, the decisions, the pivotal moments, in your life. Any time you stand at the end of a crossroads and must choose a path, that is a pivotal moment.

Every such moment has life-changing potential.

Be sure you don’t miss these moments when they happen.

Any one of these pivotal moments represents an opportunity.

To make a change, to refocus your energy, to reprioritize.

To improve your life.

Will you be ready?