Stop Waiting to Feel Ready

Sometimes delay is just a way to hide from a decision

For a year, my client Julia told me she wanted more community. More friends. The kind of people who’d come over on a weeknight, who’d text just to check in. Every session I’d ask what was stopping her. She didn’t know enough people yet. Her apartment wasn’t big enough. What if she invited people and only one or two showed up and it was awkward? She always had an answer, and the answers kept shifting — which told me the real obstacle wasn’t any of them.

She was waiting to feel ready. And the longer she waited, the less ready she felt.

One day, on a whim, I asked: “What if you just picked a date and sent an invitation?”

She looked at me like I’d suggested she rob a bank. But the next session she pulled out her phone and showed me a Paperless Post invitation she’d designed — for a casual dinner party, nothing fancy. Nine acquaintances she wasn’t sure would come. Her finger hovered over the “send” button.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” she said.

We pressed “send” together. And she immediately wanted to take it back.

But something changed once the invitation was out of her hands. She couldn’t unsend it, so she had to become the person who hosts dinner parties. And immediately, opportunities opened up. She found herself saying hi to neighbors she’d usually just nodded at, wondering if any of them might want to come. When a coworker mentioned feeling isolated after a breakup, Julia invited her on the spot — something she never would have done a week earlier.

The party went well. Even better than she expected. So she scheduled another one, then another. What started as a terrifying dinner invitation became a monthly book club. “I can’t believe I put this off for so long,” Julia told me. “What else have I been missing?” It’s a good question. And I think most of us already know the answer, even if we’re not ready to look at it yet.

There’s an old story I love so much I’ve probably told it to every client I’ve ever had. A group of boys are walking home from school in Ireland when they come across a tall stone wall. One of them wants to climb it but keeps hesitating, circling, unsure if he can make it. So he throws his hat over the wall. The hat is part of his school uniform; he can’t go home without it. Now he has no choice but to climb.

That’s what Julia did when we pressed “send” together. She threw her hat over the wall. She told me later that the hardest part of all was the time she spent spinning. Once the invitation was sent, all she had to do was follow through.

There’s a reason the anticipation is almost always worse than the thing itself. When you avoid something, your brain fills the empty space with worst-case scenarios. You’re not just afraid of applying for the job. You’re afraid of bombing the interview, or getting the job and failing at it, or succeeding and then being exposed as someone who doesn’t belong. The only way to shrink those fears back down to size is to actually do the thing and let reality replace the catastrophe you invented.

This isn’t an argument for impulsivity. (I say this as someone who’s had to learn the hard way — sometimes my instinct is to leap without looking.) There’s a difference between acting before you feel ready and acting before you’ve thought at all. The distinction is this: Are you gathering information that will actually change your decision, or are you gathering information to delay making one? Are you preparing, or are you hiding? It’s not always easy to tell. But fear dissolves with action, while waiting only gives it more room to grow.

So what does it look like to throw your hat over the wall? You create a reason to follow through. Sign up for the class and pay the deposit. Start the neighborhood group chat before you know half the people on your street — now you have to go knock on doors, get numbers, explain what you’re doing. The commitment pulls you into action you wouldn’t have taken otherwise.

If you’re not sure where to start, ask yourself: What would you attempt if you knew you couldn’t fail? What’s the thing you’d be embarrassed still not to have done a year from now? What have you spent months or years researching that you haven’t done yet?

Julia didn’t feel ready when we pressed “send” together in my office. She felt ready at about the third dinner party, when she looked around her living room and realized she’d built the thing she’d spent a year being afraid to start.

The feeling of readiness never arrives on its own. It’s something you create by taking action.