By Gayla Oakley, RN, CCRP, MAACVPR | January 17, 2019

“Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them.” - William Arthur Ward

January is the month of opportunities. You have the unique chance to evaluate outcomes of the previous year and look forward to possible new prospects in the coming year. I recently went to a keynote session in which the speaker’s tagline was, “What an Opportunity!” The message was that we frequently think of opportunities stemming from a positive situation and not from a negative, but often it is those that are taken from a negative situation that produce the greatest results. Regardless of the circumstance, I now deliberate: What is the opportunity?

JCRP published in May/June 2004, “The Award of Excellence Lecture: Opportunity Knocks.” Although written 15 years ago, the following excerpt from that article gives direction why we sometimes miss opportunities.

“There are a number of things that prevent us from stepping out and trying new things. “fear of failure” paralyzes people. The baseline of fear of failure is that if you are not willing to make mistakes, you probably will not ever make anything. Taking the risk of trying something new has only two outcomes that are possible, success or failure. Neither of these is bad. Both are good because in either case, you will learn something. Often when you fail you learn more information, and the next time you will not make the same mistakes and it will work.  It is not how good you are…...it is how good you want to be.”

Cardiopulmonary rehabilitation and secondary prevention is a world of opportunities, for our patients, our programs and our professions. It is a matter of staying on top of the newest research, reimbursement updates, guidelines and requirements to get the best outcomes. AACVPR provides a multitude of tools and cutting-edge information via our content hub News and Views, webinars and certifications. AACVPR also gives members the ability to network, team up with a mentor and be involved in a wide variety of committees. We need to be opportunity makers, not just opportunity takers.

As we move into 2019, remember: When opportunity knocks, open the door.