How Do You Know When You're Ready?

I’ve gotten some questions recently as far as “taking the leap” goes, and the main one goes as follows:

How do you know when you’re ready?

When asked of me personally, people pertain this to my decision to publish my first book, then to drop everything and spend a gap year in New Zealand, and further how I then decided to take my freelance writing career into my own hands.

So how did I know?

There’s usually a pretty intense battle of internal denial when it comes to admitting to yourself what it is you really want to do, especially if it seems like your goal is unachievable from where you currently stand. Even bigger than that are the waves of fear that try to hold you back.

Every person has fears in regards to attaining something they set their mind to, and we must first overcome them in order to better ourselves and bring ourselves closer to our goal.

The truth is, you know yourself better than anyone else does, and the simplest answer to knowing you’re ready is admitting it to yourself. You have to swallow the denial you feel in regards to what you want to do, where your life is taking you, and what path you feel you belong on.

The battle against fear is constant.

It never just “goes away.”

You merely have to push through.

Since I mostly focus on freelance, let's just say you want to be a freelance film editor. Start viewing yourself as a freelance film editor, and you will honestly find that, once you start considering yourself to be who you want to be, others will do the same.

This will work for anything you want to do... Belief comes from within first before others start to believe in you -- even the naysayers will give you a boost to accomplish your goal, just so you prove them wrong.

We’re in the start of a new year right now. For me, the last 2 years have been pretty chaotic, and at so many times I felt like I was making the wrong decisions… Only to be sitting here, now, typing this e-mail and realizing that everything I’ve done, not only these last two years but in my entire life, have been stepping stones in preparing me for what I’m doing now.

Part of my self-reflection on what I’ve been doing to reach the goals I’ve set out for myself has helped me realize when I was ready. It came when I was tired of complaining about my life. Any job I got I hated, and couldn’t appreciate it for what it was because it wasn’t what I really wanted to do. In keeping this journal with me over the last year (which, even if you’re not a writer, I highly recommend sitting at your computer every day and just writing out what you did for the day… It’s really helped me learn more about myself), I realized how much I complain about things I don’t like.

Complained.

But took no action.

I’ve been in this position a couple of times, and the thing about any decision I’ve made over the last few years is that I’ve always made the same decisions, given myself the same goals, tried to work out my path to get it there… But I always let the fear keep me from moving forward.

So here we are. January 2016, and the new year is underway. We all have 12 months before the next closing chapter of a year in our lives, and it’s time to take action. I encourage you, in 2016, to pick something you’re afraid to achieve, and spend the next 12 months working for it.

It will feel long.

It will feel tedious.

At times, it may even seem hopeless.

But, to quote my father, “Baby steps.”

That’s it.

Baby steps.

Don't think of the goal as something you need to accomplish immediately, but something that you work for. The gratification when you succeed will make it all worth it.

Every day, take another baby step that will bring you closer to the goal you’ve set for yourself, and 365 days from now, you will have taken 365 steps toward achieving your goal. Not every step will be a baby one, either, as you soon find that “baby steps” turn into “leaps of faith”, but as long as you dedicate at least 15 minutes every day toward achieving whatever goal you set your mind to, I promise you…

You WILL see results.

Happy 2016 everybody.