What Does It Take to Start Before You Feel Ready?
This week on Big Self menu: buzzer management, mindfulness, and avoiding burnout.
Dear Big Selfer,
Last weekend, I realized how often I pass on life’s opportunities just because they feel “too hard.”
My friends were staying over and I had many ideas for what I wanted to do together. A cacao ritual around the fire. Interviewing them for my next book. Playing a complex boardgame that I hadn’t tried before.
Unfortunately, none of that happened. All of those ideas were great opportunities but they demanded some organizing and planning. And in the past few days, organizing and planning somehow felt beyond me.
You can say there’s nothing wrong with that — and I would agree. Sometimes, we just don’t feel at our best. We’re tired. All we want to do is stay in our protective shell and entertain the thought that something’s too difficult for us.
We tell ourselves that we’re not ready and so, we let opportunities pass us by. Now, I don’t know about you — but I’ve certainly missed out on things just because I didn’t realize I could do them without feeling ready.
This is what the past week at Big Self was also about. We published a few in-depth articles describing that place in the mind where you can take on challenges without feeling prepared for them.
And let me break this out to you right away: That place is more ambiguous than some “feel-the-fear-and-do-it-anyway” self-help gurus would have you think.
1. Why You Should Buzz Before You Think You’re Ready by Nabil Alouani
First things first. Why should you push yourself to do things before you’re ready? Isn’t it easier to prepare and plan first — and only then execute it?
This approach may work for some situations, but not others. In his article, Nabil explains the “planning fallacy” that’s innate to humans — and proposes an alternative approach to following through on what you really want to.
In Nabil’s words:
“In short, planning is a double-loss. First, you habituate yourself to waiting instead of acting. Second — and more importantly — almost every plan you make is flawed.”
To learn more about “buzzer managment” — an alternative to planning — read Nabil’s article in full:
2. What I Learned from 323 Consecutive Days of Meditating by Chad Prevost
Okay then — let’s say you decided to jump into the challenge head-first. You took the leap, put yourself out there, made that first phone call, wrote that first page of the book. Now what?
A natural consequence of making a move like that is experiencing heightened stress and anxiousness. You want to persist, but those feelings are eating away at you. So what do you do to not give up?
Chad Prevost faced exactly that question when he first became a podcast host. While this was an exciting opportunity, he knew little about the industry. Recording each episode brought up a lot of anxiety and it took Chad a while to discover that instead of drinking a few bears before the show, he could adapt a much healthier coping technique — mindfulness.
In this beautiful passage, he describes how mindfulness meditation can help you become the person you need to be to face your challenge:
“With every breath, the old moment is lost and a new moment arrives. You exhale and let go of the old moment. It is lost gone. In doing so, you let go of the person you used to be. You inhale and breathe in the moment that is becoming. In doing so, you welcome the person you are becoming. You repeat the process. This is meditation. This is renewal.”
To learn more about how exactly mindfulness support the process of self-discovery — and how that helps tackle challenges — read Chad’s article in full:
3. How to Avoid Burnout in the First Years of Self-Employment by Marta Brzosko
Finally, it’s time for an important topic of our times — burnout. Whenever we jump at a new opportunity or challenge, we increase the chance of giving too much of ourselves to the wrong thing. That’s what burnout is — consistently doing misaligned work that doesn’t fulfill your soul’s purpose.
The tricky part is, whenever you do something for the first time, you can’t know what it will do to you. As an example, let’s take self-employment. Many people decide to become freelancers or entrepreneurs because that lifestyle comes with certain promises — freedom, self-agency, and fulfillment.
There’s no way to know how these promises translate to reality without actually getting started. By default, you’re unprepared for what’s to come. The chance of hitting the wall and burning out increases — but luckily, there are ways to deal with that.
This is how I see the main challenge of playing the long-game as a self-employed:
“Initially, you get into it because you want to do something you love. Then, you quickly realize that there’s more to following your dreams than just fun and games.
On top of practicing your beloved craft or developing world-changing products, there’s marketing, networking, pitching, and admin to do. You discover that to truly work on your terms, you first need to earn the trust of those you’re serving. Before that happens, you often need to walk a rough path for a while.”
Being able to walking that rough path without wearing yourself down is key. To learn how to do that, read my article in full:
Starting before you feel ready isn’t always the best way to go. Sometimes, you need to rest. Allow yourself to stay in comfort and accumulate energy for what’s to come later.
Always pushing yourself forward isn’t healthy — and I’m one of the last people who’d encourage you to do it.
At the same time, there are situations that call for action and initiative. We all had moments in life when we didn’t do something we wanted — and we had regrets later.
I had to digest my portion of regrets last weekend. But instead of beating myself up for missed opportunities, I’d rather see it as a reminder. Sometimes, it’s worth jumping head-straight into an idea without overthinking it. Sometimes, all we need is to act, not plan.
The comforting part is that there are strategies to help you with that. Hopefully, this post equipped you with some. From now on, it’s up to you to decide:
Will I pass on this opportunity because it feels too hard — or will I “hit the buzzer” before I’m ready?
Thank you for reading and I hope you have an amazing week,
Marta, editor of the Big Self
