act before you’re ready

Many of us spend countless hours ‘preparing and planning’ and refining our strategy in order to start a new project that we love or making a meaningful switch in our careers. Unfortunately, some of us are so busy with the planning process that we never act. We are so busy architecting our dream business or lifestyle that we don’t even take the first tiny steps to get started.

Life never goes according to our plan. We may be put in circumstances where we may feel we’re not ready to take the leap, but we still have to take it. It requires a lot of inner work and faith, both in the work and lifestyle that we want as well as in the Universe.

The bottomline is that (contrary to what we think) planning and preparing is useful but not the most important thing, acting is. When we take actions and the first baby steps, it’s foolish to think that we will not face turbulence and difficult circumstances that may shake and stir us, but in the long term, it’s necessary.

If we live under the illusion to bring perfection in our preparation and planning, and making a flawless, graceful beginning to do something meaningful and start living our truth and legend, we bring a greater risk in our life — the risk of delaying it, and maybe never even living it.

We can prepare ourselves as much as possible to make sure we’re safe, secure and well-cushioned, but we need to act, sooner or later. Maybe we can set a concrete deadline for ourselves to make the shift — this works best for some of us who never feel they’re ready.

The most important thing is to start. Start imperfect, start small, but start.  Because when we start, we are no longer in the sidelines, we are part of the game. We’re no longer a spectator, we’re a player in the arena. We are in the company of other action-takers who are embodying their own legends and truths.

With time, as we learn more and start gathering momentum, we’ll able to find ourselves in command and enjoy the flow, both personal and professional, even if we had a rocky start. We may course-correct with time and get better clarity with time. But without acting, without starting and without facing our deepest fears, we’ll never know what lies on the other side.

If we want to win, we need to act before we feel we’re ready. As Marie Forleo points out, “There’s a secret you need to know: the world’s happiest and healthiest women [and men] never ‘feel ready’ to make a bold move—they just go… They understand that the key to getting anywhere in life is just getting started… You don’t have to get it perfect, you just have to get it going.”