Ready vs Prepared

Dear Adventurer,

Can we take a moment to make a distinction between these two? They are NOT the same.

Preparedness exists on a spectrum. Not at all prepared. Kind of prepared. Mostly prepared. Fully prepared. And all the stops and starts in-between.

Readiness is or it isn’t.

Readiness is the culmination of energy at the moment of decision. Ready can sneak up and wallop you with a force of clarity your mind alone isn’t capable of. Ready is a soul-state. Ready is a full body yes. Ready co-exists in a cocktail of delight, apprehension, excitement, fear, courage, and sureness. Ready is magic-making and miracle-making. Ready is the outcome of deep knowing.

Prepared, on the other hand, is slower. It’s thought-out and deliberate, sometimes to the point of avoidance: “If I just had one more marketing funnel set up… If my website was finished… If I had one more conversation with my boss… If I accomplish five more tasks on my to-do list… If the laundry is done… If…” and round and round we go, eternally preparing. However, preparation has its place. There’s a time for wrangling all your ducks into a neat row (no easy feat) and putting in the focus, time, and energy for laying a strong groundwork or foundation. We would be lost without foundations and preparation.

That being said, here’s the most important part: you can be fully prepared, but not ready and you can be ready, but not fully prepared. When you’re prepared but not ready, wait for readiness, for ripeness, for fullness, for the moment when the action happens from a deep internal sureness. When you’re ready, but not prepared, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO/BE/GO! Fuck preparation.

Readiness is your own internal clock sounding the trumpets of alignment. 

And if you’ve never felt readiness, or noticed what readiness feels like for yourself, I invite you to explore that feeling. I invite you to ask readiness to identify itself. And whether the answer arrives immediately or three months from now, wait patiently for its arrival, clear space for its arrival. Don’t camp out in preparation and miss readiness.

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