You Never Feel Ready
When is a good time to make a change?
When you feel confident enough?
When you’re less busy?
When you have more money?
When I reflect on some of the biggest changes in my life - buying my first house, starting my own business, relocating, starting a family - I’ve realised that I rarely felt ready. Instead I was driven by the dream of what could be. The possibility of independence and creating a home when I bought my first flat. If I’d have focused on the size of my mortgage and all the bills I would never have made the leap. I never had a dream to become self employed, but I fell in love with coaching and seeing people find the courage to change. So I walked away from the familiarity of an organisation and income I’d known for 14 years and set up my own business.
When we glimpse a vision of the future we long to see it inspires us to overcome the hurdles and fears that stand in our way. We get a surge of courage and determination that exceeds our fear of the unknown and our fear of failure.
Don’t wait till you feel ready, wait till your passion exceeds your fear of failure.
How do you fuel your passion?
Identify your why. We need to keep our focus on the reason why we are making the change. It might be a better work/life balance, a role that really excites us, a hobby or course that we’ve been dreaming of doing for years, an issue we feel really strongly about. Articulate your why and it will keep you going when you have a wobble and fear rears its ugly head.
Find a picture, a word or a phrase that captures your why and put it somewhere you will see it every day.
Talk about it. Share your dream with people you know will encourage and support you. Talk to people who have a similar passion. There is power in speaking out what we want to see become a reality.
Fuel your passion in any way you can - reading, attending events, trying courses, meeting people - immerse yourself in that world.
So often we’re waiting for the perfect conditions, but the reality is that they rarely exist. There are always going to be challenges and obstacles that seem to block our path. Some of them are external factors like a lack of time, experience, knowledge, money and some of them are internal factors like a lack of confidence, energy, focus or clarity.
‘I've heard someone say that our problems aren't the problem; it's our solutions that are the problem.’ - Anne Lamott. We often focus on the problem rather than expanding our definition of what’s possible. We just need to find another way of solving the problem.
I love the film We Bought A Zoo and there is a beautiful moment where the main character, played by Matt Damon, is having a conversation with his young son and tells him “Sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”
You’ll never feel ready. You’ll rarely have loads of free time. You won’t know if you’ll succeed unless you try.
Ignite the fire inside you and find twenty seconds of insane courage.