I’ll Start When I’m Ready — The Lie That’s Keeping You Stuck

Well, hello there, my friend.

Welcome aboard to The Daily Podcast.

This is Jonathan Doyle.

I am glad you have stopped in for a moment.

Let's see if together we can unlock some new small possibility on this path

of personal development and growth.

This life that you have been given is a huge adventure.

I know it doesn't always feel that way.

Sometimes it can feel a little bit quiet, like the wind has left your sails.

Sometimes it can be exhausting.

There's so much happening, you don't know what to do.

But one way or another, it's a really useful insight to begin to see your

life as this magnificent story that you are co-authoring with the divine

creative God of the universe, right?

That's how I try to look at it each morning when I get up, or maybe not every

morning, but as regularly as possible.

So today, I wanna talk to you about another place that people get stuck,

and it happens when you kind of begin to get into the personal growth

space, and you realize that, you know, you wanna change your life a bit.

There's some significant things you really wanna do.

But then you come to realize that, uh, sometimes there's a

lot of component parts, right?

There's different-- you might need different clothing or equipment, or

you might need a personal trainer, or you might need to read new books.

And what can happen for a lot of people is the end goal can seem so far away, so

distant, that they don't actually start.

And the kind of mindset with that is, "I'll start when I'm ready." When I've

got all the component pieces all laid out, when everything is right there

in front of me, and I've done all the research, and I've read the books, and

I've listened to the podcasts, and I've watched the YouTube videos, or I've

done the course, then I'll be ready.

You know, it used to sort of surprise me years ago when I

was doing a teaching degree.

I did a four-year teaching degree when I was a younger person.

I was passionate about teaching, as I still am, and about encouraging people,

so I did a four-year teaching degree.

And I can remember for so much of that time thinking to myself, "I'm

really not learning very much here."

Like, I actually think that I could have just walked straight into

the classroom and just nailed it.

Like, I didn't need to do this process.

Now, people are gonna disagree with that, but there were all these ideas

and things on developmental psychology and just so many different things

like, you know, understanding all these different perspectives and, ah, I

guess there was a point to it, but this is what I call credentialing, right?

When the system creates this need for credentials, where you can't actually

get the degree or you start the job until the degree's in place, right?

Credentialing.

You know, some of you will push back and say, "What about brain

surgery? You can't just go and do that straight away." Agreed.

All right, I will give you that, that you don't wanna just jump straight into that.

But I think that so much of our university system is just a

credentialing process, where, you know, you really could probably start.

A lot of people would be quite gifted and could just start much sooner.

So what we really wanna focus on is this idea of I'll start when I'm ready.

So let's make this very simple.

You're probably never gonna be ready.

If there's something significant that you wanna do, then this idea that you've

gotta get everything completely lined up before you start is really problematic

and is definitely going to hold you back.

You have to begin.

And again, people push back and say, "That's, that's a bit frivolous."

Like, you know, what if you're not organized?

No, I think we can use it as an excuse that we're not really gonna commit

until absolutely everything is perfect.

Uh, I guess if you look back at that old Tom Hanks movie when

he's stuck on that island, right?

And, uh, and he, and he has to wait for these perfect weather conditions.

And that's a good example of the occasional times in life when if you're

basically trying to float a homemade raft across the Pacific Ocean, yeah,

you're gonna kinda wait for the right climactic conditions, climatic conditions.

But again, you know what I'm talking about, right?

This stuckness, this I, I wanna run a marathon, or I wanna lose weight, but

I've gotta read this book on weight loss, or I've gotta get this app, and

until I get this app, I can't start.

And you know, sometimes we can just feel that the goal is so far

away that what's even the point?

There's a guy in the gym this morning, and I spoke to him about a month ago, and

I, I mentioned this on another podcast.

I actually went up to him and I said, "Man, look, I'm sorry,

can I talk to you for a minute?"

I said, "Look, I just wanna say to you, like, whatever you've

done, this is amazing." Because this guy used to be… I reckon he

would've been maybe about 150 kilos.

So for my American friends, that's gotta be m- 340, 350 pounds.

And he had really transformed his body.

He'd lost so much weight.

And I saw him again this morning, and I th- I think of him and I think so many

people would be like, "Well, I'm not really gonna go to the gym until I've

lost this much weight, or until I'm ready, or until I've got the right clothing."

But I see a guy like this who obviously somehow just

started, just began the process.

So the central message of this short podcast today is to say to you, friends,

you may never have everything ready, but you cannot let that hold you back from

beginning, because I think it's a crutch.

I think it's a way that many people kinda just use this sort of

inertia to not really do something.

And I wanna promise you, we are spectacularly good at lying to ourselves

that we won't do X till X happens.

We really do have that capacity, and the way around it is that you just begin.

You know, there's a great saying from the Stoics that the obstacle is the beginning,

not the precursor to the beginning, which is like the thing that's difficult,

the hard part to get started, is like that, that obstacle is the invitation.

It's the start point.

You must begin.

So if you're listening to me still, there's gotta be something in your

life that you'd like to change.

There's gotta be something, a relationship.

Don't wait to have read every book on the topic.

Don't wait until you've listened to every podcast you can find.

Those things can be useful and they're important, but do not let that stop

you from the simple act of beginning, because if you wait to be ready, you

could be waiting a very long time.

All right.

That's it from me.

God bless you.

Thanks for listening in.

Get started on what matters to you.

You can find everything you need about me on the website, jonathandoyle.co.

I'm on Instagram @jdoylespeaks, and make sure you've subscribed because I'm gonna

have another episode for you tomorrow.