One of the greatest lies that we tell ourselves is that we will “do it when we are ready”.
I recall nearly 2 years ago, I was sitting at the dinner table with some friends, and we were talking about having children, and the timing associated with this (obviously massive) life change. I remember my sentiment being exactly the title of this article: you will never be ready for that next step, so why put it off to an arbitrary future goal-line that you can move at your will? For others, it was that they needed to be at a certain place in their career, they needed X dollars in the bank, they needed to have travelled, or settled down.
But - we all know that those numbers change, that place in life changes, and all of a sudden, it is a decade later and you never started.
People put off and put off the next step in their lives because “they are not ready yet”.
The hard truth is that you will NEVER be ready to do that which you set out to do.
In the world I come from of programming, you are always a beginner; you are always starting. It matters not what you previously did, or what you say you will do, but what you put out into the world and solves problems for other people today and tomorrow and forever into the future.
The idea that you will be “ready” for that next chapter in your life is false, always has been.
You take the leap of faith today and it either pays off or you adjust course. You “build the airplane on the way down” after you jump off the cliff. You call your shot, and then you make it happen; not the other way around.
If you are consistently doing that which you say you were going to do, you build credibility, and future endeavours have a higher likelihood of success because not only do you believe in yourself, but so too, does the world. Not that we care much for “the world” in these parts, but the people in it do matter.
Now, back to having children:
If you are in a committed relationship, what are you waiting for? If you are married, you have not fulfilled the purpose of that marriage by “chilling at home” or “travelling” with your spouse. You only fulfill the purpose when you start to bring more souls into the world.
All those “anti-children” people be damned!
You’ll never be ready.
Take the leap.