140. How to Stop Waiting to Feel Ready (And What to Do Instead)

Holly Toscanini: What if readiness isn't something that shows up, but something you discover after you start taking action? We have been taught to believe confidence comes first. Act once you feel ready. But the truth runs the other way. Readiness isn't about being fearless or even fully prepared. It's about deciding in the middle of your nerves and doubt to move anyway. In this episode, we'll look at where the habit of waiting comes from. What readiness actually is, how to recognize when it's time to take action, and three kinds of yeses you can start practicing this week. Hello and welcome back to another episode of How to Lose the Wait I'm your host, Holly Toscanini. How many times have you thought, I'll do it when I'm ready? Ready to change jobs? Ready to leave a relationship? Ready to start painting or traveling or writing or building something you've been dreaming about? We wait for readiness like it's an Uber that's running late, tapping our foot and telling ourselves, we'll go as soon as it gets here. Here's the truth: readiness rarely shows up the way we think it will. You will never feel perfectly prepared. You'll never feel fearless. What you will feel is a nudge, a quiet internal signal that says, This matters. And fear will almost always come along for the ride. So the question isn't, am I ready? The real question is, am I willing? Before we go any further, if you're already sitting with that kind of a question right now, I've put a free resource in the show notes. It's the what's next self-coaching session. It's short, guided, personalized, and helps you name what's actually in your way. You'll find the link in the show notes. Go check it out, come back when you're done. Let's start with something we rarely say out loud. Most women have been conditioned to wait. To hesitate, to hold back until conditions are perfect. From the time we were little girls, we were told it was safer to over-prepare, overthink, and just play it safe. Don't rush ahead until you know you can actually do it perfectly. Don't take up too much space. Don't risk failing. And somewhere along the way, readiness got tangled up with perfection. You may have heard this statistic. It comes from an internal Hewlett-Packard report, and it's wildly, widely setteed research on women and workplace confidence. They found that men tend to apply for a job when they meet about 60% of the qualifications, while women typically wait until they meet 100% of the qualifications, every box checked. And if there's one line on that list they don't feel certain about, they hold back. Now that doesn't mean women are less qualified. It means that we've been conditioned to believe we need to be beyond reproach before we even enter the room. And that conditioning doesn't disappear when you hit 40 or 50. It follows you into midlife. Many of us are still living with what I call good girl syndrome. Now, the good girl script said be agreeable, don't rock the boat, don't make mistakes, and don't make anyone uncomfortable. Do all that perfectly, and maybe you'd earn approval. Now that script may have helped you survive certain environments, but what got you here won't take you where you want to go next. And the hangover you feel from being a good girl leaves a residue, a fear of failing, a fear of being judged, a fear of disappointing people. So what do we do when the fear shows up? We wait. We tell ourselves we'll go for it when we're less scared, when the timing is better. But waiting doesn't calm that fear, it just feeds it. It reinforces the story that you're not ready yet. And over time, that story can harden into self doubt. The longer we wait, the more that doubt can turn into a belief that it's just too late, that the moment is past. I've sat with a lot of women who've said, I feel like I wasted my chance. And it isn't true. They didn't waste it. They just kept waiting for a readiness that was never gonna arrive. So ask yourself today where are you still waiting for perfect readiness? Is it in your career? Your relationships? A creative dream you've been sitting on for years? Write it down. Name it. Because naming it is really the first move. See, here's the truth about readiness. It doesn't mean what you think it does. Most of us imagine readiness as a state where we suddenly feel calm and fearless and fully resourced. Like we'll wake up one morning and know with certainty today is the day. No hesitation, no nerves. That's not how it works. Readiness is not the absence of fear. Readiness is choosing to move even though fear is present. The myth is that confidence comes first. But confidence doesn't show up before you take the leap. It shows up after. It's built one small act of courageous doing at a time. You don't feel confident and then act. You act, and then your confidence grows. Think about the biggest turning points in your own life. Did you feel completely ready before any of them? When you became a parent, went back to school, started a new job, or left a relationship, were you fearless? Probably not. You were scared. And you did it anyway. And looking back, you can see it. You were ready enough. Here's something worth knowing. Fear and excitement feel almost identical in the body. The sweaty palms, the racing heart, the butterflies. Your body doesn't always distinguish between the two. The difference comes from the story you tell yourself about how you're feeling. If you call it fear, you freeze. If you call it anticipation, you move toward it. I've experienced this more times than I can count. When I launched this podcast, for example, I was scared. My inner critic was loud. Who do you think you are? What if nobody listens? I didn't feel fearless. And my voice might have trembled in those first early episodes. But the more I showed up, the easier it became. Confidence wasn't waiting for me at the starting line, it was waiting just on the other side. So let's name this readiness. It isn't about eliminating fear or doubt or nerves. Readiness is about willingness, willingness to move without a guarantee, willingness to risk imperfection, willingness to trust that you're gonna figure it out as you go. Here's a reflection question. What's a moment in your past when you move forward scared and it worked out? What did that teach you about? What ready actually means. If readiness isn't about waiting for fear to disappear, how do you know when it's time to move? Well, you listen for that nudge. See, intuition rarely shouts, it whispers. It's that quiet pull towards something that just won't leave you alone. The thought that keeps circling back no matter how many times you try to dismiss it. There are three things I want you to pay attention to. First, persistence. If an idea or desire keeps resurfacing, keeps coming back over days or months or sometimes years, that's a signal. Intuition has a way of tapping you on the shoulder until you actually pay attention. Two, relief under the fear. When you picture yourself saying, yes, there's fear, of course there is. But underneath that, there's also a flicker of lightness, of possibility. Almost like your body exhales at the thought of moving forward. That's a very that's very different from just a flat-out no, right? Which usually feels really heavy or constricting. Number three, what kind of fear is it? There's a real difference between the fear of danger and the fear of stretching yourself. Now danger says, hey, this isn't safe, you've got to protect yourself. But stretching says, this is new, and I'm not sure if I can do it yet. If what you're feeling is fear of being seen, fear of imperfection or fear of failure, that's almost always a sign of growth. One thing that helps when you feel torn about a decision, pause, slow your breath, and then ask yourself: Am I avoiding this because it's genuinely wrong for me or because it's asking me to grow? That one question usually cuts through the noise. I've watched clients sit with this question after months of second guessing. When they finally asked it, the answer was already there. They weren't resisting because the idea was wrong. They were resisting because it was right, and right felt scary. Intuition isn't always dramatic. It's steady, and the more you practice listening for it, the more clearly it speaks. Okay. Time to grab your journal. Here's your prompt. What's the nudge you've been ignoring? What's the idea or decision that keeps circling back no matter how many times you try to push it away? And what would it look like to say yes to it, even in the smallest way? Now, by now you might be thinking, all right, Holly, I get it. Readiness is a myth. Fear doesn't mean stop. But how? Do I actually do it? How do I say yes when my stomach is in knots and my brain is trying to talk me out of it? Saying yes doesn't mean turning your whole life upside down overnight. It doesn't mean you hand in your resignation and start over from scratch, unless that's what you actually want. Saying yes is often smaller, quieter, and far more doable than that. I think of yeses in three categories: there's tiny, medium, and big. Tiny yeses are everyday choices that begin to shift things. They're small acts of self-trust. Saying no to an invitation you don't actually want, signing up for the class you've been curious about, resting without guilt, wearing what you love instead of what you've been told you should. Tiny yeses may look small, but they're not. Every time you honor one, you're telling your nervous system: I can trust myself, I can handle this. These are your confidence builders. Now, medium yeses stretch you a little bit more. They're a bit more risk, more visibility, more investment of time and energy, like speaking up when you normally stay quiet, or starting the project you've been putting off, or booking that solo trip, or having a hard conversation. Big yeses are the moves that genuinely change the direction of things, leaving work that no longer fits you. Ending or beginning something that reflects who you actually are now. Moving, investing in yourself in a real way, a course, a coach, a commitment that asks something of you. Big yeses can feel impossible if you're trying to leap from zero. That's why the tiny and the medium yeses matter so much first. They build that muscle. Think of it like physical training. Nobody gets fit overnight. You start with what you can do today and add to it over time. And eventually the thing that felt impossible becomes something you can actually do. Saying yes works the same way. You start with what you can carry. Courage expands with use. What's the one yes you can practice this week? Not the dramatic one, just the one that matters to you. Write it down. And then do it. One small yes creates movement, and movement is what carries you forward. Now, if you've been sitting with a nudge that won't leave you alone, a dream you keep postponing, a decision you've been overthinking, my free What's Next self-coaching tool is a good place to start. It's short, guided, personalized questionnaire that helps you name what you actually want and figure out what your next step forward looks like. You'll find the link in the show notes. Here's what I want you to hold on to. If that nudge keeps coming back, you don't need to wait for perfect readiness. You're already ready enough. Because the moment you stop waiting and start moving is the very moment readiness starts to reveal itself. It's not a state you achieve before action, it's something that shows up through it. You prove your readiness by saying yes. I've seen this with so many women. They they hesitate for weeks or sometimes months, telling me that they're not sure they're ready. And then they take the leap, join the class, have the conversation, invest in themselves. And within days, they're saying, Why didn't I do this sooner? I didn't realize I was ready all along. Fear doesn't mean stop. It usually means it matters. And if you can hold that truth close, you'll start to see fear for what it is. A sign that you're moving towards something real. Until next time. Bye for now.