Ready Isn’t a Ceiling, It’s a Choice
I used to think “ready” was a place you arrived at. Like some ceiling you’d finally break through the day when you suddenly had enough money, enough time, enough confidence, enough credentials. I waited for that moment. I prepared for that moment. And yet, it never came.
My husband would ask me how I felt about something, and instead of answering with an actual feeling, I’d respond with a list of reasons I wasn’t ready. “I don’t know enough yet.” “The timing isn’t right.” “I still need to figure out X, Y, and Z.” He’d check me every time: That’s not a feeling.
And he was right. What I was really saying was: I’m scared. I’m uncertain. I don’t want to fail. But those aren’t ceilings either. They’re decisions.
If you’re like me, maybe you live in that space of overthinking. The land of endless research, color-coded spreadsheets, and “just-one-more-step” planning. It feels responsible. It feels like progress. But really, it’s analysis paralysis.
That’s when you think so much about what could go wrong, or what the “best” decision might be, that you end up not moving at all.
If you’ve ever…
Rewritten a plan five times but never started it,
Waited to “feel sure” before taking action,
Or realized months passed and you’re still in the same spot,
…then this is for you.
I’ve looked up before and realized that time had passed me by, not because I was lazy, but because I was stuck trying to make the perfect choice. And the irony? Even if I had just made a move, any move, by now I’d have learned something, adjusted, and been further along.
That’s the quiet cost of analysis paralysis: you trade progress for perfection.
We keep waiting for “ready” like it’s a milestone. The truth is, “ready” doesn’t exist the way we imagine it. As if one day we’ll wake up and the doubts will be gone, the timing will be perfect, the money will be in place, and the confidence will finally match the vision. It’s not a checkpoint we finally unlock. It’s not a magical signal from the universe. It’s a decision we make in the middle of the uncertainty, in the middle of the fear, sometimes even in the middle of not knowing.
