The Expensive Myth of Waiting Until You're Ready

There's a certain kind of exhaustion that comes from being "almost ready."

You know the one.

Where you've done so much work: Research, planning, learning, refining, and you're so close to launching the thing, making the change, taking the leap.

You can feel how close you are.

But something keeps you in that "almost" space.

Just one more thing to figure out. One more piece to put in place. Another angle to consider.

And the exhausting part isn't the work itself.

It's carrying around this decision you haven't made, the move you haven't committed to, this version of yourself you can see but won't step into.

You tell yourself you're being responsible. Strategic. That you're making sure you do this right.

But if you're really honest? You've been ready for a while now.

The Invisible Belief Running the Show

There's a belief so deeply embedded you probably don't even notice it anymore.

If you're going to do something, you need to do it really, really well. Maybe even perfectly.

And "really, really well" means: Thought through from every angle. Planned for every scenario. Prepared for every possible objection or complication.

It means not looking foolish. Not being caught off guard, or having someone point out something you should have considered.

This belief got you where you are. It made you thorough. Someone who doesn't half-ass things.

But it's also quietly convinced you that being ready means having answers to questions that haven't even been asked yet.

Which is impossible.

So you keep preparing. Because as long as you're still preparing, you haven't failed that standard. You're still being responsible, still being thorough, still doing it "right."

And when you're in the thick of it, it's hard to see that you're not actually trying to get ready anymore.

You're trying to avoid a specific feeling.

What Preparation is Actually Protecting You From

The feeling of putting something out there and having it not land the way you hoped.

Of raising your prices and watching someone's face change. Of pivoting your positioning and realizing some people don't get it. Or worse, don't like it.

Of being visible in a new way and not being able to control how people respond.

That feeling is so uncomfortable that your brain will do almost anything to avoid it. Including convincing you that you're not ready. That you need more time, more information, more certainty.

As long as you're preparing, you don't have to feel that discomfort.

You get to stay in control. Stay safe in the version of yourself that people already know and accept.

Which... I get. That feels better than risking being someone people don't recognise.

Every course you buy, every framework you study, every round of "getting clear" you go through, it's not moving you closer to ready.

It's allowing you to put off the discomfort for a little while longer.

The Thing About Identity Decisions

The decisions that actually change your business?

They're not skill decisions. They're identity decisions.

When you're learning a skill, marketing, copywriting, systems, more information genuinely helps. You study, you practice, you get better. There's progression.

But identity decisions don't work that way.

And maybe I'm oversimplifying this. Maybe some people genuinely need more time.

But I don't think that's what's happening here.

No amount of studying will show you who you're willing to be publicly. No framework will make it comfortable to show up as a version of yourself that some people might not recognise or like.

That's not an information problem. That's a "are you willing to step into this even though it's uncomfortable" problem.

You can't prepare your way out of discomfort. You can only decide whether you're willing to feel your way through it.

What Happens While You Wait

Women spend six months, a year, sometimes longer, preparing for a decision they already know they need to make.

And during that time, they don't just stay in the same place. They move backwards.

Every time they know what needs to happen, fire that client, launch the offer, raise the prices, and they start with "I just want to run this by you quickly..." or "Does this make sense to you?" And before they've even finished the sentence, they've already talked themselves out of what they knew five seconds ago.

They're teaching themselves that what they know isn't reliable enough.

That their read on the situation can't be trusted. That someone else needs to confirm what they can already see before they're allowed to act on it.

Months of that, and they've trained themselves out of trusting their own judgment.

So now they're not just facing the original decision. They're facing it with even less confidence in their ability to know what's right.

The preparation didn't make them more ready. It made them more doubtful.

And I see this constantly. Genuinely capable women who've built successful businesses, who can't post content without running it past three people first. Can't make a decision about their own business without polling their mastermind.

They've built something real while training themselves that their judgment doesn't count.

And it's maddening to watch. Not because they're doing anything wrong, not at all. But because they can't see what's obvious from the outside: They already know. They've always known.

The Clarity That Only Comes After

The clarity you're waiting for. The certainty about your messaging, the confidence in your positioning, the knowing that you're making the right call, it doesn't show up before you move.

It shows up after.

Launch the offer and you'll immediately see which messaging resonates. Have the conversation at your new price point and you'll figure out how to talk about your value. Make the pivot and you'll discover what actually fits and what doesn't.

But you have to move first.

The women who seem so clear and confident?

They're not more prepared than you. They just didn't wait until they had it all figured out. They decided to find out what would happen instead of trying to predict it.

And that decision, to find out instead of figure out, that's the only thing that changes anything.

So What Now?

The move you're avoiding isn't going to feel more comfortable six months from now.

The uncertainty isn't going away.

Every day you spend preparing is another day reinforcing that you can't be trusted to handle things as they come. Another day built on the assumption that later you'll somehow feel more certain, more confident, more ready.

But that version of later doesn't exist.

The only thing that changes is how much time you've spent teaching yourself not to trust what you know.

The real question isn't "Am I ready?"

It's, “How long am I willing to keep practicing doubt?”

Every month you stay in preparation mode is another month proving to yourself that you need permission. That what you can see isn't enough. That you're not capable of figuring things out as you go, even though you've been doing exactly that your entire career.

The discomfort you're avoiding by staying in "almost ready"? It doesn't go away.

You simply get more practiced at avoiding it.

And at some point, staying in almost ready stops being comfortable at all. It's just familiar.