Start Before You’re Ready
Stop using “I’m not ready” as an excuse and start taking action on what scares you.
You know what they say about excuses. Well, let’s just say…everyone has ‘em.
There’s one excuse, in particular, that’s holding you back and that is telling yourself, “I’m not ready yet.”
I’m calling it an excuse because most of the time it’s simply not true. Most of the time you are ready to do whatever it is you want to do. Or at least ready enough — and probably more ready than you think. But a lot of people don’t move forward with a goal, or they take way longer than they should because they don’t feel ready.
If you find yourself using this excuse, you’re not alone. This is definitely an excuse that I fall prey to all the time. However, I’ve learned how to recognize when I’m making this excuse, and I’ve taken the time to understand why I’m doing it. As a result, I now have the tools I need to take action even if I don’t feel as ready as I’d like to at the moment.
Here’s the reason we tell ourselves we aren’t ready to take action…
It’s not a big surprise that it all comes down to fear. The goal is to figure out what specific fear is keeping you from moving forward.
Our fears are so scary because all that we fear can actually happen. In fact, it quite possibly will happen. Knowing how to handle these setbacks will lessen the grip that fear has on you.
Here are a few common fears that tend to hold people back from getting started:
- Fear of failure.
- Fear of success.
- Fear of rejection.
- Fear of change.
- Finding out what you wanted isn’t all you thought it would be.
- Making a fool of yourself.
- Making a mistake.
- Not being able to handle success, failure, etc.
We call these fears your “gremlins”, or your inner critic. Your gremlins are what’s making you feel not ready to move forward. And, watch out, those little buggers are insidious and can be very convincing.
Here are some telltale signs you’re letting your gremlins take control…
If you hear yourself saying:
“I don’t have enough money.”
“I don’t have enough time.”
“I don’t have enough experience or education or training (talent, etc.).”
You can be certain that your gremlins are the ones talking if you hear yourself using the word enough. If the word enough is creeping into your vocabulary, it should raise a red flag and tell you that you’re making an excuse, because enough isn’t specific.
How can you know you don’t have enough if you aren’t sure of what enough actually is? Unless you can determine that $50,000 will be enough money for you to start your business, you’ll never have enough to do it. In other words, if you can’t be specific on what enough means, then you’re just making an excuse.
Most likely, once you start trying to determine what enough is, you’re going to realize there are underlying reasons that have nothing to do with having enough of something. Everyone has different fears and reasons for thinking they’re not ready to start moving forward with a goal. What you need to do is to learn to differentiate between a legitimate reason why you cannot start something and when you’re making excuses.
4 Ways to Start Pursuing Your Goals
Gain insight into your fears.
You can’t really know how to deal with something if you don’t know what you’re dealing with. Once you know what you’re dealing with, you can begin to learn ways to not be ruled by your fear.
A warning: seeking insight can quickly turn into a form of procrastination. While there are many benefits from gaining insight into the reasons why we think or do the things we do, don’t dwell in this space for too long. In other words, don’t spend endless hours self-analyzing or pouring over self-help books. Personal development is great, but insight is only helpful if we use it to make changes. However, having self-awareness will allow you to catch yourself when you’re making excuses.
When you find that you avoid taking action on something you want, try to uncover the underlying reason. A good way to do that is simply to ask yourself, “What would happen if I were to have… (whatever it is you want)?” Try to consider this question from all angles. What good could happen? What bad could happen? How would my life change?
Another great way to see how you feel about something more deeply is to look at a list of core values. Core values are your personal values and include things like love of learning, meaningful work, spending time with family, and so on. Here is a good list of core values to peruse. Find the values resonate most for you and then see how your specific goal aligns with those values. It might bring up some feelings or thoughts you didn’t realize you had.
Pay attention to the dialogue that goes through your mind as you think about these questions and consider your personal values. Write down your thoughts so you can start to make connections and see patterns. Once you start to gain some insight, you’ll probably uncover some of the fears and underlying beliefs that you have, which brings us to the second step.
Call out and disarm your inner critic.
This deeper insight should allow you to identify the thoughts and feelings that stem from your fears. Recognize that these are gremlins, and they are not in control of your destiny nor do they have psychic abilities. The catastrophic thoughts going through your mind are only in your mind. Realize that you don’t have to believe everything you think — you get to choose what you want to believe and what you want to throw away.
Ask yourself if what your mind is telling you is useful, productive, and, more importantly, is it true? If it isn’t, change the thought to something positive. For example, if you’re thinking, I’m going to fail at this, change the thought to, I will succeed at this!
Whenever the negative or panicked thoughts creep up, reframe and repeat the positive. Even if you don’t believe it — act as if you do. You’ve likely been telling yourself the negative for a while, so it may take your brain a few repetitions to believe the positive.
Finally, keep in mind that the fear is usually worse than what might actually happen. Refer back to that list you wrote when you asked yourself, “What could go wrong?” Look at the negative outcome objectively and ask yourself if avoiding that outcome is worse than what it would feel like to never have tried. This is the most important thing that helped me. When I turned 40 years old, I wondered if I would be content with my life if I were on my deathbed. I couldn’t answer that positively. There was so much that I wanted to do, and could do, but was too afraid to do. And I realized the thought of never having tried at all was way worse than my fears.
Figure out what you’re most afraid to do.
The sweet spot is what you’re avoiding. The only way you’re going to make progress with your goal is to start doing what it is you’re most afraid to do. What do you keep telling yourself you’re not ready to start doing yet until you get blah blah blah done first? Ask yourself if you’re just putting it off because you’re afraid for some reason?
There might be some legitimate reasons you’re not ready to take a certain step just yet. For example, let’s say you want to start a business. Not having the credit to get a business loan is a legitimate reason for not being able to rent a space. However, it’s not a valid reason for not saving money, working on improving your credit, finding an alternative working space, or starting smaller. There are always steps you can take that will move your forward in some way.
Are your gremlins just taking the reins from you? You can answer this by asking yourself, “If I’m never able to get this business loan, how else could I start to realize my dream of becoming a…(whatever it is you want to be)?” Once you know that, you can start figuring out the steps that are going to get you there.
Figure out what enough will be.
If you claim you don’t have enough of something, your next step is to figure out what enough will be. No more using this as an excuse!
If you’re serious about your goal, sit down and figure out how much of whatever it is will suffice and get you moving forward. Once you figure it out, stick to it. In other words, don’t let yourself keep adding onto whatever you determined was going to be enough. Also, be realistic about it. If you want to start a business, do some research, and determine a realistic amount of money you’ll need to get your business off the ground. Then, map out a plan that will get you enough of what you need to start moving forward with your dream.
Action Step: Carve out some time this week to figure out if you are avoiding anything that would improve your life in some way — consider what’s holding you back. Then, challenge yourself to take a big step toward your goal. Take the step that you’re most afraid to take. Try to get comfortable pushing yourself and getting out of a limited mindset. You’ll be so glad you did!
