Time spent preparing is rarely wasted when the moment finally demands competence.

Preparation looks like nothing until the moment arrives and then it is the whole difference. The hours of practice, the skill built quietly, the reading nobody asked you to do: none of it justifies itself while you are doing it, and all of it shows up at once when competence is suddenly required.

Choose one capability you would want to already have if an opportunity appeared next year, and start on it now without needing the opportunity to be guaranteed. That uncertainty is precisely the condition under which preparation happens. The alternative is being ready only for things you can already see coming.