Have you wished you owned your business? Or that you could work at something that you enjoy doing? There are business opportunities all around us, but many times we fail to recognize them until its too late. Others capitalize on them before we realize the opportunity even existed. Being dull to opportunities brings discouragement and starts a cycle of financial despair.

Listed below are six simple disciplines to help you sharpen your ability to recognize small business opportunities occuring around you.

Listen. Open your ears to what friends, colleagues and business associates are saying. Listen to financial reports on television and radio.

Be Informed. Stay current on events, especially topics that are of interest to you. For example, if you lean toward real estate investing, be knowledgable about interest rates for commercial and/or residential real estate and other topics related to real estate investing. Current events reveal trends in markets.

Read. Be a reader. Recently I researched information concerning national literacy rates and found the United States ranked 61st in adult literacy of the natins of the world! In our time, most people have quit reading. Discipline yourself to skim headlines of newspapers, magazines, internet sites, etc. Then take the time to read in depth what has caught your interest from reading the headlines.

Awareness. Be aware of what's happening around you, business-wise. Take notice of new shops and stores, new construction and improvments. Notice advertising, billboards and marketing campaigns that other businesses are deploying. Businesses that are growing are investing in marketing, advertising or enlarging their facility. These are all indicators of opportunity.

Think Positive. There are many books about positive thinking that are available, get one or two and read them! Positive thinking works because you are what you think and you feel what you want. Abraham Lincoln said, "Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Make up your mind to be successful, happy and positive. Your life will reflect what you think, you'll see opportunity as you never have before.

Current Events. Many times business opportunties are connected to current events, as was my case in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. For example, thousands of trees needed to be removed from homes, driveways, yards, roads, fences, etc. The local tree companies were simply overwhelmed. No way could they make a dent in the sheer volume of work to do in any reasonable amount of time. Hence, an opportunity for outside tree contractors to come and find work. This was also true in the roofing, remodeling, fence construction sectors as well.

Following these six disciplines will sharpen your ability to recognize small business opportunities as they arise and increase your self confidence in recognizing small business opportunities.