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Episode 436 – Start before you are ready

• Hi there everyone
• How are you today?
• I hope your day is off to a good start
•  
• I want to ask you a question
• How often do you actually feel ready for important events in your life?
• Ready as in READY – prepared, informed, and set
• You feel good about all the work you have done and now you can roll
  • Dressed for an important event
  • Studied and prepared for a test or an interview
  • Ready to move forward with confidence and determination

• Isn’t it true that we feel unprepared more often than we feel prepared?
• Do you remember your college days?
• Didn’t everyone in your class always whine and complain prior to a final exam that they didn’t study enough? Are not prepared enough? Don’t think they understand the material, and so on?
• I do
• I was one of those people
• And rarely did I actually screw up
• I mostly performed better than I thought
• Because I did study and I prepared
• But I never felt ready, no matter how much I studied
• The same happens every time something important comes up
• I never feel quite ready
  • Sometimes I truly didn’t do the work
• But even when I do it, I never feel quite ready
• Does that happen to you?
• I have been thinking about how often this feeling of not feeling ready actually holds us back
• I believe when we don’t feel we are ready, we try fewer new things
• Unless, of course, we have to
• Deadlines, and tests, are part of life and they push is into getting ready
• But the older we get, the fewer exams we have to face
• In fact, we try to avoid them at all costs
• The problem however, is that often unless we are forced into the next challenge, we often don’t take it
• Because we don’t think we are ready
• There I always something missing that our brain will find and hang its fear on
  • Not enough expertise
  • Didn’t study that
  • Don’t know anyone who can help
  • Timing is off
  • Not enough time
  • No money – ok well – money but not for this
• We can come up with a myriad of reasons why we cannot do whats in front of us
• Yet, over and over again I have found, that this concept of ready is an illusion
• The state of readiness doesn’t really exist
• In our professional lives the question often gets asked – are you ready for the next level in your career?
• To me this would imply that I can perform all the functions of whatever that next level is
• That’s unfeasible
• There I a reason it’s the next level
• It will entail tasks and responsibilities that are new and that I don’t have any experience with
•  
• To feel ready is – like it says – probably more a feeling
  • A state of mind

• Ready to me means being prepared
• Not to handle every scenario
• But to be able to use my existing knowledge and apply it to the new circumstances
• Here is the thing:
• We don’t yet know what the new issues are
• We may know a little about what the job entails, but we will not be able to predict every situation we will run into
• Hence – our perception of readiness will always be flawed
• We don’t know exactly what awaits us so how can we determine if we are ready
• Yet
• We make so many decisions based on our determination of ready or not
• And sadly – we turn down many opportunities just because we don’t feel ready
• There are times when the opportunity truly is not for us
• But if its something you have already been thinking about
• Something you really would like to try
• And opportunity that makes you smile and your heart beat faster
• I’d say START
• The things that catch our attention do so for a reason
• They interest us because they meet a need
•  
• But I will add to this
• Don’t start blindly
• I read tons of articles and motivational posts encouraging us to Jump In – follow your heart and don’t wait until you feel ready
• And I say – yes, but prepare
  • Don’t prepare until you feel ready
  • Don’t prepare and then never get out of preparation mode
  • Don’t prepare for what you cannot prepare
• But do you due diligence just like you would for anything else new that you are about to begin
  • You wouldn’t start a new job without informing yourself about the new company
  • Reading reviews about the company
  • Seeing how they perform financially
  • Maybe speaking to current or former employees
•  
• For an opportunity knocking at your door
• For a new adventure or a business pursuit
• Don’t wait until you feel ready
• Start – but prepare
• And I suggest you prepare in the following 3 ways

1. Gather information

• Don’t overdo it but collect information
• This is easier than ever today in our wired world
• This week I took over additional responsibilities at work as my coworker left
• She was responsible for scheduling all our inbound freight from overseas
• He departure was sudden and I only had about 2 hours with her
  • Not nearly enough to learn everything about this very important aspect of our business
• As I was planning my first loads I needed to find out the maximum capacity for a 20 ft ocean container
• I couldn’t find the information in her notes so I googled it
• This is what I mean by ready
• I wasn’t ready to take over her duties, but I knew that with my basic knowledge from working on the distribution side receiving containers I could figure out the rest somehow
• I didn’t have much time to think about it and sometimes we don’t have time to gather a lot of information
• Then move on to step 2
•  

2. Compare your passion with the risk –

• I believe, that the more passionate we are about a new adventure the more risk we are willing to take
• Ask yourself – what’s the worst that can happen
• When I started my podcast, my biggest 2 investments were time and some money, but not a lot
• The risk wasn’t huge
• Before you jump in – at least check your risk temperature
• This is not meant to deter you
• The opposite
• If the risk is not major, then go for it
• If the worst is some lost time, then I believe it was worth the try
• Even if I never climb a mountain again, I would never regret the time I spent climbing almost every weekend for a year.
• Envision the worst and I can tell you right now- the worst hardly ever happens
• However, still think of it
• It will give you peace of mind
• If you can deal with the worst, you can deal with anything in between
• And lastly

3. find the opportunity in the failure
   • should you fail
   • should things go sideways
   • figure out right now, before you start, how the opportunity will serve you
   • for my podcast – I thought this through
   • if nothing, I told myself – at least I have tried
   • I rather try and fail instead of not failing but always regretting that I didn’t try

• The experience is almost always worth the try
  • Learning something new
  • Testing out ones capabilities
  • Going for it
  • It usually always makes it worth it

• When you prepare yourself –
  • It quite often means just this:
  • Thinking through the worst that can happen and deciding to be ok with it
• Its not to say you should not study, and learn and prepare yourself in other ways for the challenge ahead
• But the opportunities that come our way often do because we have already done that
• We are ready
• We are prepared
• Now its just a matter of deciding to start
• And not let our feelings talk us into Not feeling ready
• Remember – ready means you know exactly what awaits you
• That takes the fun out of anticipation
• There is a thrill in not knowing
• In going for something without a predictable outcome
• I think that is what life is about
• The adventure
• The opportunity to discover who we are and what we are capable of
• The chance to write our own legend
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• When you start before you are ready – it means you are more curious than you are comfortable
• When we are comfortable, we stop being curious and we don’t go out and try new things anymore
• But when you start onto an unknown path
• Even when you are a little unsure, you are curious
• And that means you are willing to accept the risk that comes with the unknown
• And I cannot think of a time in my life when this didn’t work out
• When the outcome was better than anything I could have ever imagined
• And definitely better than all my fears that tried to hold me back
• So I urge you
• Don’t get hung up on the illusion of readiness
• Don’t worry about being all prepared
• Check in with yourself and see how passionate you are
• and then trust in that and set out to find out
  • Discover
  • Learn
  • Try
• Go with the flow and allow yourself to be surprised by your own capabilities

Much love