Stop Waiting for “Ready”
The trickiest excuses always sound like wisdom. When you look at a major project, a career move, or a hard conversation and say, “I’m just not ready yet,” it definitely feels like the responsible choice. What we're actually saying is: "The ideal scenario hasn't arrived yet, but I'm sure it will magically deliver itself to me while I sit here and do nothing." The reality of course is that the “ready” feeling you are waiting for is never going to show up.
I caught a podcast recently where an author described this perfectly. He said we act like we're waiting for a publisher to cold-call us and say, 'I have a hunch you’ve got a masterpiece in you. Now go write it and we’ll handle the millions in sales.' We laugh at that because we know the world doesn't work that way. No one is handing out pre-packaged guarantees. Yet, when it comes to our own lives, we wait for that exact same type of flawless, risk-free invitation before we make a move.
I was talking to a friend recently who has been trying to make a major career change. They’re incredibly talented, but they’ve been completely paralyzed by "the risks." Now, I am a naturally risk-averse person myself, so I completely understand the hesitation. I get the desire to protect yourself.
But when I challenged my friend to actually list out what those risks were, there weren't any actual negatives. There was no financial ruin waiting for them, no massive downside, especially since they currently had a stable job. The hesitancy was completely rooted in: “I’m just not ready.”
They had unconsciously decided that a mountain of other, irrelevant tasks needed to be completed before they could take even the smallest step toward their actual goal. Underneath it all, the real barrier was the fear that they weren't qualified enough or smart enough to do something different.
My Own One-Year Delay
I know this trap intimately because I built it for myself when I set out to write my book, The Excuse Index.
Deep down, I felt like I had something to give to the world; something that could make a real difference in someone's life and help them navigate challenges to get the most out of it. But for an entire year, I didn't write a single sentence down.
Why? Because I convinced myself I wasn't qualified. I wasn't an "author." I was just a guy who had gone through a few life experiences, but so had everyone else. Why was I any different? I told myself this content had already been covered before, nobody would trust me, and I kept spiraling into the worst-case scenarios: What if they don't like what I write? What if I spend all this time for nothing? What if, what if, what if?
It was a terrible, suffocating cycle, and the result of all that overthinking was an entire year of doing absolutely NOTHING.
I was treating readiness and certainty like they were the same thing. They aren't.
You don't get to feel 100% certain before you start. It doesn’t work that way. When you sit on your goals under the guise of "waiting until you're qualified," you start to think the world is admiring your patience. While you are waiting to feel ready, nobody is noticing how careful you are; they are just noticing that you are late.
How to Break the Pattern This Week
If you have a career move, a project, or a goal that you keep delaying because you "aren't ready," here is your tactical assignment for this week:
List the "Risks": Write down the actual, tangible negatives of taking one small step. If you can't name a real, catastrophic downside, admit that you're just waiting for a feeling.
Find the rough version: Stop looking for the flawless masterpiece in your head. Figure out what a version looks like that is simply "good enough to exist" and get it down on paper.
Create accountability: Go to someone you trust and tell them out loud: “I am going to submit that application / draft that proposal by Thursday.”
In my own experience, that last step is the most important one of all. I used this to great effect when writing The Excuse Index. I forced myself to tell at least 10 people what I was doing, which meant I was constantly answering questions about my progress.
By doing that, you flip a powerful mental switch. You trade the internal debate for a hard deadline, and you trick your brain into a simple, healthy pressure: I don't want to let them down, and I don't want to look foolish. That social expectation provides the exact push you need to finish what you started, completely removing the need to sit around waiting for a feeling that was never coming anyway.
Go Deeper Into This Persona
I did a full 3-minute teardown on why we fall into this trap, how it played out in my own career, and how to punch through it. You can watch the video breakdown right here:
👉 Why You'll Never Feel "Ready" (And What to Do Instead)
Next week, we are moving on to Persona #2 which is the one that blames everything on external timing. Stay tuned.
