How to know if the time is right:

Someone close to me received news of an exciting opportunity, and they came to me with the “should I go for it?” question.  Let me just start by saying this: even when an opportunity seems like no-brainer, it can be terrifying to take the leap.  I don’t care how great an opportunity is, being the advice-giver is way easier than being the decision-maker.  Though I had the easy part, I took a lot away from our conversation.

We processed the information in three stages.  First, we were psyched.  They’ve been in the infant stages of pursing a new goal with the plans of doing the heavy lifting now and reaping the benefits in maybe five years or so.  How amazing is it that this opportunity is in reach so much sooner than anticipated?

Then reality rolled in like storm clouds and rained on our bold, self-confident parade.  Like we said, this goal is in it’s developmental stages.  If this is important enough to work for, shouldn’t they wait for the perfect opportunity to arise?  And this particular opportunity must not be perfect because it didn’t come exactly when our BS timeline scheduled it to come.  Why rush a good thing if they aren’t ready, right?

Thankfully, stage three begged the question “who told you that?”  Who said it’s too early?  Who said they’re not ready?  What does “ready” even mean?  I can honestly say that my anxious self has never been ready to do anything in my life.  If I waited until I was ready, I would still be hanging onto my mom’s leg trying to muster up the courage to walk into kindergarten.  You just need someone to push you through the door.  Again, I had the easy part in this conversation.  So I pushed.