Ready or Not…

Have you ever stepped up to a presentation or sat down for a test and had that sudden and unexpected, “gulp” when you realize that you grossly unprepared? Maybe you forgot about it altogether. Or you got subbed into the game, or called up for some additional responsibility, and you realize that you haven’t been taking your training or your work seriously. Now that the moment calls for you to be more than your training, you realize that you are unprepared. Unfortunately, I get to see the “Oh no” face all the time as a teacher, when I ask students to clear their desks for a test, and they suddently remember, that they forgot.

Maybe, like me, you’ve been on the other side of this. You sit down to watch a presentation, or listen to a speach, and it’s clear that the person standing in front of you is unprepared for this moment. I’ve listened to a few sermons that have felt like the pastor totally mailed it in. They grabbed a few props on the way out of the office, picked out some common scriptures, and gave a very generic sermon, without (seemingly) much preparation.

When this happens to me, I usually deal with one of two emotions. Either, I am overcome with embarrassment for this poor soul, who finds himself in front of an audience and is clearly not ready or I am frustrated that someone has wasted my time with their lack of preparation and their disrespect for the moment they’ve been given.

What is the importance of being prepared? I’ve written before about my feelings on gettingprepared, and even more importantly, staying prepared. The preparation that we do, before the big moment, when nobody else is watching and before anyone is actually keeping score, is one of the primary keys to any type of meaningful success we might have in our lives. We can’t get better on hope alone, we’ve got to put in the work, and we’ve got to do so constantly and consistently.

One guy that I never want to be, is the one that stands up in front of a crowd, or steps into my additional responsibility, and has the people around me feel like I mailed it in. I would never want someone to feel like I have wasted their time, or my opportunity. A lack of preparation or a disrespect for the job is something I hope I am never accused of.

But the other guy, the one who I watch, and can tell he’s trying really hard, but just doesn’t quite have it (yet), the guy that I sometimes share some embarrassment with, I’m trying to learn to be okay being that guy. Because here’s the thing: When we are trying something new, doing something we’ve never done before, or stepping into increased responsibility or challenge, we will never be ready or prepared.

When I think about all of the most important things in my life, I’ve never really been prepared for any of them, and it has nothing to do with my effort or intention.

I wasn’t prepared for marriage, and everything that comes with that responsibility. People try lots of things to get prepared for marriage, but I don’t think any these things can fully prepare us. People move in together, or wait until they have enough money, or more money, or until they are “certain”. And none of those things fully prepare us for the surpises, challenges, and impact that marriage has on our lives.

I wasn’t prepared for being a father. The baby comes out and they send you home. We read books, and we talked to friends, and we prayed, but at the end of the day, we took home another human being with the understanding that we would somehow raise her from a fragile newborn into a strong and healthy adult. Good luck.

No amount of school or additional degrees, or internships could prepare me for my first job. You’ve been there, I’m sure. No amount of theory, or textbooks, or even advice from others can take the place of getting in there and getting real experience.

But we do these things. I think we do them, despite our uncertainty and lack of readiness, because they mean something to us. We decide they are important enough to do poorly until we can figure out how to do them well. But we don’t not do it because we don’t have all the answers. We figure out the answers or make them up as we go along, because this stuff is important.

Preparation is valuable, for sure, but only the type of preparation that promises that we have done our very best, put in the work that we can, and shown a healthy respect for the current or coming opportunity. On the other hand, don’t convince yourself that preparation is the most important thing there is, or that you need to prepare until you have all the answers. Because you can’t, especially when you are doing something for the first time.

We get these opportunities that deep inside, we know are important. And deep inside, we know that we must. And when those come up, I hope that you (and I) have prepared to the point that we can. I hope that we’ve given our best, and that we show the respect that the opportunity deserves. But beyond that, I hope that we don’t hide behind preparation as an excuse to refrain from actually doing. The only way we can really figure it out, is to get in there and do it. To fail, and fail, and fail, and to do it poorly until we can figure out how to do it well.

This place is where the real preparation occurs.

The people around us, the ones who’s opinions matter anyway, can tell the difference in us being unprepared and being “not quite ready. Our spouses know we don’t have it all figured out, and I’m not afraid to show my kids that I don’t have all of the answers. For a time at least, I think a good leader will allow us to be “not quite ready” when they call us into a new position. They can see our effort, they can feel our intention, and they can sense our respect for the responsibility we’ve been given.

It’s difficult sometimes, to be honest with ourselves about our level of preparedness, especially when the lizard brain inside of us wants to convince us that, no matter what, we aren’t ready. And because of that, he would have us just sit on the sidelines, a little while longer, until we can get everything situation just right. Our challenge is to be honest with the work we’ve put in, without caving in to the gremlins in our head that tell us we aren’t good enough.

Have you done the best you can with what you have?

Have you put in the necessary time and effort to show proper respect for the opportunity you are pursuing?

Is your heart posture in the right place as you consider this leap?

Is this thing important to you?

Deep in your soul, do you feel like maybe, just maybe, you must?

Then let’s go for it.

I’m pulling for you,

Bryan