Not Ready is Just Fine

We tend to want to wait until we are “ready” to do something. To do anything.

We spend a lot of time “getting ready.” Truth is, we rarely allow ourselves to be deemed ready and we stay stuck in a holding pattern.

My advice, based on my own experience, is to do things anyway. Not ready? That’s okay. Give it a go. You’ll find out that you do okay and you learn a ton too. You create more opportunities by doing stuff before you feel ready.

Was I “ready” to an event in NYC? Gulp. I’ll just wait a year. Or two. Yet here I am with one under my belt.

Was I “ready” to submit a proposal to powerhouses Suzanne Evans and Larry Winget yet I did and I was hired to be their Book Coach for their Hell Yeah Star program.

Ready is not just for professional endeavors. I didn’t think I was ready to fall in love again and had a timetable for myself after my divorce. I had a lot of baggage around being ready.

If I would have waited until I was “ready” for love, I would have missed out on the most amazing experience of my life. I was joyously remarried before my self-imposed “ready” scale said it was time. I can’t imagine my life if I would have blown this, waiting to be “ready” to date again.

We hold ourselves back trying to protect ourselves. From hurt, embarrassment or any number of fears. When we can take a deep breath and plunge in anyway, we see that our worries were blown out of proportion.

I meet people all the time who are doing that dance with themselves. I’m here to tell you, no one has ever died from looking like a fool. Now I think I am fool not to jump in, whether I feel ready or not.

This is not reckless abandon. You know what I mean.

“Oh, I am not ready to talk to anyone yet about what I do; gotta get a website/biz cards/gumption.”

“When I’m ready to write my book, I know you are the one I want to work with. I just gotta get ready.”

“Fill in the blank here…..I’m getting ready to x, y, z.”

If you wait until you are “ready,” you may stay right where you are, wondering and wishing and wringing your hands.

Yes, there is strategy and timing to be considered in business. For some, it may not be the right time to do certain things. For many, it is. They just won’t pull the trigger and allow themselves to do something a bit out of the comfort zone. Even writing a book is something people give the excuse of “gotta get ready.”

This isn’t like operating on someone’s brain before you have finished med school. In that case, you may not be ready. I also know from watching Grey’s Anatomy that you just might be ready despite certification.

So if you are stopping yourself because you say you are not ready, I say poppycock. Let go of that excuse and get down to what is really holding you back. There’s a fear in there, big or small. Step into that. That is where the growth is. That is where the love grows.

Take a few good really deep breaths. Plant a smile on your face. Say it with me: Ready or not, here I come!

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