ALWAYS CHASING BETTER

GREAT THINGS HAPPEN

BY MICHELLE HORTON

WHEN YOU DO THEM BEFORE YOU’RE READY

I was not ready to be sober.

A few years ago, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, with tears chasing each other down my cheeks to my lap, I told my now ex-husband that I wanted a divorce. We had met in college, built a successful contracting business, and had a beautiful daughter.

I wasn’t really ready for divorce. Six weeks later, I walked into my school superintendent’s office and resigned with no intention of ever going back into public education. I left a six-figure salary, a twenty-five-year career and a pension that would have kept me financially secure well into old age.

I wasn’t ready for financial uncertainty.

Not long after that I recognized that I had loving feelings for one of my friends who I trusted with my deepest secrets and was as female as I was.

I sure as hell wasn’t ready to look at my evolving sexuality.

And when I finally got serious about my healing journey, I gave up alcohol while holding the empty Patron bottle high over my head waiting for the last drop to land on my tongue. One thing I know about change is that great things happen when you do them before you are ready because being ready, never comes.

Try this out. Bring something to mind that you know in your heart of hearts

needs to change in your life. Maybe it’s a relationship or a situation at work or something about yourself that you know is not serving you well. We all have these nagging little issues that bubble up to the surface when we least expect them. Do you wonder why you haven’t taken any action? You might have already told yourself that you’re just not ready. Here’s the deal about being ready. We are humans and humans are never ready for anything outside of our comfort zone. As a species, we are just not hardwired to embrace change! In fact, our complicated subconscious will go to great lengths to convince us that we should remain in the same uncomfortable situation every single time we even think about challenging our status quo. As if having our emotions in a choke hold wasn’t enough, our subconscious will also make us so physically uncomfortable with the idea of change that we will do nearly anything to avoid it! You see, pain is a powerful emotion and most of us will deny our authenticity in order to keep a healthy distance from it. We do all of this avoiding despite our knowing that on the other side of that pain is the woman we are aspiring to be.

Meet Julie. She’s in a job that she hates. To roll out of bed every morning, get adequately dressed to show up and then sit among the office negativity has got her so miserable it’s spilling into her personal life. She would love to be an entrepreneur and she has a great idea, but she’s overwhelmed with how much she doesn’t know about running her own business and the financial insecurity she would have to face. She is waiting for a sign, any sign, to walk out of that job

“Here’s the deal about being ready. We are humans and humans are never ready for anything outside of our comfort zone”

and into the life of the strong, successful businesswoman she so clearly envisions for herself.

Women tell me all the time, “I can’t follow my dream because I’m not ready.” I assure them, as I do you, that we will rarely get a signal from the heavens, a reassuring whisper in our ear or a glittery visit from our fairy godmother telling us, “You’re ready now my little princess!” Instead of waiting for something that may never come, try this BOLD strategy.

B – Get brutally honest with yourself – look yourself in the mirror and tell her what you want in as much detail as you possibly can. Let yourself feel all the emotion of being that woman you have in your heart and mind. Go ahead, cry, yell, scream and keep eye contact with yourself. Describe the woman you want to be to your reflection and tell her you are there for her.

O – Take one step, even a small one, toward being that woman you aspire to be whether you’re ready or not. Be like Nike and just do it!

L – Show yourself some love and compassion because this is hard work and every little bit of effort toward becoming the best damn version of yourself is worth celebrating. because you are already on your way! When you ask successful women about their best lives, many will tell you, with almost 100% certainty that the life they have created was worth the challenges in the journey and they weren’t always ready for them. That is true for me too. I quickly realized that my “waiting to be ready” was actually keeping me stuck outside of my purpose and meaning in life. I wanted to be authentically me and live fully as I was intended to be. I want that for you too.

Have the audacity to stop waiting to be ready and start using this strategy to be the woman you know you are! Everything you need is already inside of you.