050_Are You Waiting Until You Feel Ready?

Have you ever spent more time getting ready for something than you did actually doing the something? 

You have this great idea. You want to start or create something.  You want to try something and you don’t much about it. We research, look at stuff, gathering information and we would hopefully at sometime, we feel comfortable enough to then do it. Right?

It’s that “hoping to be comfortable enough to start” place we discussing in today’s podcast.
Preparation is good. Having the knowledge is good. Understanding is good. Information can be valuable and even help us feel more confident. But at some point we have to take a leap of faith in ourselves and just do it.

We’re never going to feel completely ready to take a leap of faith. That why it’s a leap of faith. We’re never totally comfortable leaping into the unknown. 

That feeling on the edge of starting something is palpable. It is the intersection of excitement — of joy & fear.  
If you’ve ever gone rock climbing and repelled off the top — that’s the feeling!

This is where often, rather than leap and just do the thing, because we don’t feel ready, we do more research, more ‘prep’ to hopefully dampen the fear part of that equation.  

Prep can only take you so far. Prep will never match the actuality of doing the thing.  

I’ve forgotten tons of great idea projects I had that never got off the ground because I got lost in ‘getting ready’ until the idea no longer felt exciting or feasible. Can you relate?

What’s behind this?  Fear of failure. Fear of the unknown. 

Getting ready is comfortable, because no actual leap has taken place. Getting ready is fun, because there is no commitment in place.
Getting ready is distracting, because when you think that you don’t know what you are doing, you focus on all the things you don’t know yet instead of picking one and starting.  It feels productive, but it never really gets you anywhere.

There’s a fine line between preparing ourselves and being in the moment, and saying, “Okay I’m going to let go of expectations.” “I’m going to let go of what my bar of success is.” “The reason I’m doing this is because I want to try something new.” That is reason enough. To try the new thing for the experience of trying the new thing. For the present moment experience of ourselves taking the leap.

When I look back on some of the greatest moments of my life, they all started with a leap of faith.

How about you? Do you get stuck in analysis paralysis? What are you waiting for?

It’s crucial to be honest with ourselves about what we’re up to with over-preparing. There’s always an expert we can give our power to to buy ourselves a few more moment of delay, of procrastination.  But only experience changes our relationship with the unknown of trying something new.

Kids live in the adventure of taking leaps of faith. They are great teachers for us to remember we can leap before we feel ready.  

Every leap of faith builds our faith in ourselves. It teaches us to trust ourselves to be flexible and adapt to new information. We learn to trust our intuition instead of relying on ‘experts’ that aren’t even in our unique situation.  When we trust ourselves we can be in the moment and respond to what life is presenting us with honestly. This is where real communication with life takes place. 

Stop waiting to be ready and take a leap of faith now! You’re worth it!