You’ll Never Be “Ready,” So Stop Waiting

By Matt Duczeminski,

Throughout our childhood and early adult years, we’re conditioned to think we need to be “ready” to take the next big step in life.

Our teachers won’t let us get too far ahead of where they think we should be in terms of knowledge.

Our parents try to protect us from ideas and truths they think we’re not ready to learn about.

We, ourselves, hold back when faced with major decisions that we don’t believe we’re ready to make.

We’re constantly told we’ll understand certain things, or be able to do certain things, when we’re older—as if the passage of time alone is enough to teach us everything we need to know about life.

This way of thinking has a hugely negative impact on the way we live our lives.

For one thing, some of us feel we are ready to move forward in life, but are constantly being held back by societal norms. Additionally, there are those of us who never take the first step toward our goals because, despite being told by society we are ready to do so, we don’t believe we truly are.

—

The night I graduated from high school, I broke down into tears.

It hit me all at once as I returned home from the school-sponsored “All Night Graduation Party”: I had no idea what I was going to do with myself after walking across that stage.

Throughout my first eighteen years on Earth, life simply happened to me. I didn’t need to make decisions on my own. As long as I did the work that was given to me, I was passed on to the next grade.

Though I did well enough in school, had succeeded at many after-school jobs, and felt pretty good about my life in general, I didn’t feel as if I was ready to take the next step.

It was intimidating to think that everyone around me had a plan for the rest of their lives while I had no clue what I wanted to do. I figured if I was going to move away, spend thousands of dollars, and commit to learning a specific set of skills, I had to be 100 percent certain that it wouldn’t end up being a mistake.

It never once occurred to me that most of my peers were just as apprehensive about their future. But while I wasted time waiting until I was “ready” to dive into college, they dove in knowing they’d figure it out along the way.

—

I ended up attending a local two-year community college that fall. I figured I would “get the prerequisites out of the way” before narrowing my focus on specific coursework.

If I’m being honest, that’s what I told others—and myself. In actuality, I spent two years doing the bare minimum to pass my classes. I barely gave any thought to my future.

It’s not that I wasn’t interested in the material. It’s that I didn’t see myself ever doing anything with the information I learned.

I continued to believe that I’d know what to do “when the time came.”  

I failed to realize that I should have been using the prerequisite classes to help me figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, rather than simply taking courses just to fill up my schedule. Instead, I skated through four semesters of community college without truly learning anything that would help me get anywhere in life.

—

I was one of the last of my friends to move out on my own. For years, I had convinced myself that I wouldn’t be able to make it in the “real world.” The thought of living paycheck-to-paycheck and in debt scared me to death.

Once again, I never once stopped to think that all of my friends also owed thousands of dollars on car payments, college loans, and more, but it didn’t stop them from taking the next steps in their lives.

While my peers were well on their way to building a life for themselves, I spent my early twenties mistakenly believing it’d be better to put my life on hold and have money saved up for when I was “ready” to move out than to just do it and get busy living.

—

We all know that hindsight is 20/20, and time is our greatest teacher. But if we wait for time to teach us how to live our lives, we’ll have missed the opportunity to take advantage of these lessons.

We need to have confidence in our abilities, and faith in the notion that taking immediate action will result in much greater gains than if we were to wait until “the time is right.”

There are a few ways we can make this happen:

Stop Comparing Yourself to Everyone Else

If you constantly compare your accomplishments to others, you’ll always find a way to be disappointed. This disappointment can lead to self-doubt and feelings of unpreparedness.

As I mentioned before, I wasted an enormous amount of my twenties thinking that everyone else around me somehow had it all together while I was barely staying afloat.

I kept wondering when I would finally have the confidence and abilities needed to move forward in life—as if these things would just come to me one day.

I now realize that confidence and ability comes from active practice, and the reason many others around me may have been more successful was because they didn’t waste time hoping for something to come to them; they put in the effort to make it happen.

Identify and Challenge the Excuses That Hold You Back

“I don’t have enough money.”

“I don’t have a well-paying job.”

“I don’t know what I want out of life.”

“I’m not quite ready yet.”

Since there are innumerable ways things could go wrong when stepping out of our comfort zones, it’s possible to create an inexhaustible list of excuses to stay stuck, and seemingly safe.

But we must realize that most, if not all, of the excuses we make are temporary roadblocks, not concrete walls. Even if it takes a little extra effort, there are ways around them.

If you don’t have enough money to go back to school, or are stuck in a dead-end job, you might default to thinking you’ll never make something of yourself. But instead of wallowing in your sorrows during the time you have to yourself, you could sign up for cheap (or even free) online workshops to help you spring into the next chapter of your life.

If you don’t know what you want to do with your life, chances are it’s not because you don’t want to do anything. (It’s more likely that you want to do everything!) Unfortunately, too many of us allow our indecisiveness to manifest in stagnation, and we end up letting opportunities to try new and exciting things slip away from us.

Yes, we should be wary of the possibility that things won’t always go swimmingly in life. But if we let the fear of being unprepared for such contingencies stop us from taking steps forward, we’ll never get anywhere at all.

It’s okay to not feel like you’re ready to make big moves in life. We all feel that way at times.

But sitting around waiting to “be ready” won’t get you anywhere. You need to actively go out and get the experience that will prepare you for the next step.

Maybe you aren’t ready to take a giant leap into the next chapter of your life, but that doesn’t mean you should stop taking baby steps in the right direction altogether.

We tend to measure our worth by our major accomplishments: graduations, first jobs, marriages… the list goes on. But we often fail to realize that none of these things happen overnight. It’s through the little steps we take leading up to these major events that prepare us to take the giant leaps that define who we are.

As long as you continue to press forward, you’ll eventually get where you want to be.

Time will not prepare you for what’s next in life. Only your experiences, and the lessons you learn from them, can.

Rediscover The Beauty Of Life Instead of Just Getting By

By Katherine Mackenzie-Smith ,

As kids, we are beings of wonder. Spending hours inspecting blades of grass, hoping to discover lady beetles, rocking fairy wings or a cape at the shops because we feel like it, laughing for the silliest reasons, and finding unadulterated happiness in special treats, our favorite cartoon, or a game of hide and seek.

As teenagers, we often become too cool to find joy in the simplest things but still manage it hanging out with friends, falling in love with celebrities, and listening to that one song over and over again.

But, by the time we reach full-blown adulthood, those whimsical childhood traits may be as forgotten as an invisible friend.

As grown ups we’re allowed to do all the fun things we spent high school wishing we could do, and yet, we get caught up in jobs we hate, paying bills, sitting in traffic, and sometimes ‘just getting by.’

I know this feeling, because I’ve been there.

And then, one day, I decided it was time to stop for a second and find a way to get back to a time when life was more joy-filled. Rediscovering the beauty of life, instead of focusing on the ugliness, the negativity, or the laborious pains of just getting by.

The Beginning Of Change

Since I was fifteen, I wanted to work in film and television. I did my high school work experience at a post-production company and decided I would work there one day.

I graduated top of my class studying film and TV in high school, I was (and still am) a total film geek, I studied it at university. And then landed by dream job at the company I’d experienced five years earlier.

I could not believe it.

From that point onward, I went from contract to contract working some crazy hours (like 2PM to 2AM shifts for an entire month).

I went through periods of no work between contracts (and, as a result no money), being morally torn between staying true to myself and doing what it takes to butter people up for the good jobs, working on shows I hated, working with people who made my skin crawl, getting praised by my superiors but being ignored by those doing the promoting, and continuing to strive for a dream job that felt like it was never going to happen.

Of course, the perks of the job were fantastic—working with some great people, every day being interesting and unexpected, traveling, and working in what I still consider to be a really fun industry.

But when something stops serving you, it becomes so much harder to see the good from the downright terrible.

This all culminated when I landed the producing job I’d been working toward. Oh, what an achievement! You can imagine my excitement after so many years of working my way up to the job I’d always wanted. The celebration that followed the promotion was…non-existent.

I was earning good money. I had the job title. I was finally getting somewhere. And I didn’t even stop to acknowledge it because all I could see was that I still wasn’t happy.

A friend rang to congratulate me and I didn’t even notice.

I was so overwhelmed by the anticlimax of it all. And that’s when I knew something needed to change.

It’s Time To Do More of What Makes Me (and You) Happy

It may seem like a ridiculous notion to some, but I honestly and truly believe that when you see these habits of what feels like never ending complaining, whining, and frustration then it’s time to make some changes.

Some people are totally cool to accept that this is all there is, but not me. (And maybe not you, either).

When I realized that too much of my time was spent unhappy, I decided to do whatever I could to change that.

I changed jobs as soon as possible. I started working with people who meant the world to me in a role that was much better suited to me. This gave me room to breathe and come up for air after ten years on a career path that I decided I hated.

I started to see what I loved again.

And even if I was still trying to decide what to do, this made it easier to finally be happy. And I became aware of how I could do more of this on an everyday basis.

I set dinner dates with friends on Monday nights to make the beginning of the week oh-so-enjoyable. I took advantage of coffee runs at work and turned them into glorious sun walks. I found joy in the simple pleasure of sitting in the park on the weekend just chatting or reading.

I noticed I was changing. Sure sometimes stress still popped it’s head up and challenges arose, but I was becoming better equipped to handle the unknown because I had simply brought more joy into my life. The unexpected inconveniences became less frustrating, and the simplest pleasures became more obvious.

The power of needing to change allowed me to find ways of doing more of what made me happy.

Rediscover the Beauty of Life

I’ll be completely honest with you: this is not something that just happened to me overnight. I’m still working toward my new career path and finding what I really want out of life. I still get frustrated or upset sometimes, and I still have a lot of work to do.

But something changed the day I decided to take life into my own hands and seek out the beauty of life.

I became more aware.

I started attracting more happy moments and wonderful people to me because I actively sought them out, and what I put out came back to me tenfold.

I seek out the good stuff instead of dwelling on the not-so-good.

And, through this, I’ve learned that the more we search for beauty of life, the more we invite it in. As kids we noticed it with ease, exploring to our heart’s content but, as adults, we sometimes forget to pay attention.

We get caught up with the mundane, we focus on the negative, and we love joining in on a mutual whine-fest with others. But imagine how much we could gain from our day if we took a moment to soak in the bliss of being alive.

Lying in the grass, laughing with a loved one, being recognized at work for doing a great job, swapping out things we don’t like with things we love, acknowledging someone else and seeing their joy, and just embracing the moments that make up our day-to-day lives is the key to finding the extraordinary in each day.

It may not always seem that simple but, I promise, if you’re willing to give it a shot, try it out, and be intentional when seeking out wondrous moments, it will make a significant difference to your life. And, the more you practice, the easier it will be to see.

I invite you to be aware of what you might need to change and seek out possibilities for joy in the coming week.

Find ways to bring the fun in and keep your eyes wide open for special moments or people that can make your life even more beautiful. Or, even better, take time to be grateful for what you’ve already got.

Try it out, see how you go, and then leave me a comment and tell me how it went!

The Secret To A Happy Life Is Hidden In Your Daily Habits

By Becki Sams

It hit me as I cruised along at full speed on a busy motorway on my way to a friend’s house.

Shaking like a leaf, I pulled myself out of the car and stood by the side of the road. I desperately gulped in the fresh air, a frantic attempt at calming myself down.

This was the ninth day in a row I’d experienced a wave of panic so intense, it felt like I was about to die. It was utterly unbearable.

I’d been worrying about all the work I had left to do on my Master’s dissertation and berating myself for taking a day off to spend time with friends when I should have been working. All of a sudden, my throat closed up, my chest tightened, and my hands shook so much that I was convinced I would lose control of the car.

This was the final straw.

I’d been waiting for a magic solution, a miraculous savior, a quick fix that would snap me out of my near-constant state of worry. I’d been waiting for the universe to wave its wand and finally grant me a normal life. It wasn’t happening.

I wasn’t willing to face up to the work I needed to do in order to stop indulging in my bleak hypothetical predictions about the future. And more importantly, I didn’t even know what the work was. But that day, I made the decision to find the key to a happy life and to start putting in some serious elbow grease.

I just couldn’t live like that any longer.

That was three years ago.

What You Practice, You Get Good At

The problem is, for a very long time, I practiced worrying. About everything.

I worried about what people thought about me. I worried about what might happen to my health. I worried about whether I would have the career I wanted.

I also practiced managing this worry, and the myriad of unpleasant emotions that accompanied it, with food, alcohol, and sex. I used substances (and other people’s bodies) to make myself feel good, to take my mind somewhere else, and to give myself a moment to relax.

But underneath, the worry was still there; these “fixes” just masked it. Instead of paying attention to what was actually going on in my head and realizing that my thoughts were creating a reality that didn’t actually exist, I practiced covering up my desperation, hoping that this fix would be the one that actually worked.

I was constantly feeding habits that gave me short-term satisfaction or relief, that I knew were ultimately destructive. And I know I’m not the only one.

Many of us spend our days acting mostly out of habit—the foods we eat for breakfast, the route we take to work, even the thoughts we entertain. These become the actions we practice, over and over again.

And what we practice, we get good at.

What Do You Practice?

Here’s a little something to reflect on: What habits are currently running your life? What thoughts do you think every single day? And are these serving you, or not?

We might not think of habits as a practice, but that’s exactly what they are. Each and every day, we’re practicing being the type of people we want to be, whether we realize it or not.

My anxiety, despite being a very real (and often terrifying) experience for me, was a habit. I was practicing being the type of person who was constantly stressed out and worried about everything. Nowadays, however, I practice being the type of person who recognizes these thoughts, knows her limits, takes care of herself, and makes a different choice each time her old pal worry comes out to play.

Think about it:

• How many times a day do we complain about things not being the way we want them to be?
• How many times a day do we disengage from connection with others and allow ourselves to be distracted by technology?
• How many times a day do we worry about things that haven’t even happened yet?

The answer is likely: a lot.

We’re experts at this stuff. After all, the key to mastering any skill is repetition; if we repeat a specific action enough, eventually we’ll gain fluency and competency at it.

This is why the true secret to happiness lies in our daily habits rather than in the “magic fixes” we often think will make us happy.

Daily Practices for a Happier Life

So what if we became conscious of the habits that are running our lives and switched them on their head?

What if we started practicing things we actually wanted to get better at? And what if, instead of making it some huge, life-changing mission, we simply set the intention to live this way, making small steps toward it wherever we could?

Remember: What we practice, we get good at.

With this in mind, here are a few suggestions for habits we could start practicing daily in order to live a happier life:

• Kindness
• Compassion
• Generosity
• Acceptance
• Non-judgment
• Presence
• Listening
• Forgiveness
• Relaxation

The way these look in our lives will be different for everyone, but the intention behind them is the same—to notice our destructive habits and to make a different choice.

Personally, I’ve found three super effective ways to start bringing new practices into our lives.

1. Notice your autopilot.

We have to recognize our habitual autopilot mode in order to do something about it.

Becoming aware of the way we live our daily life—the choices we make, the people we surround ourselves with, and the stories we tell ourselves—helps us to remember who we really are and what we really want. It also helps us make more conscious decisions about how we act so that we choose our response rather than react out of habit.

The best way to do this is to first make a list of all the times you already know you tend to slip into autopilot.

For example, you might recognize that you frequently spend your lunch break scrolling through Facebook, and then you feel bad about yourself after comparing yourself to other people. Or, you might notice you regularly worry about worst-case scenarios when you’re lying in bed at night.

Once you’re aware of what you’re doing, you can commit to making a different choice the next time you’re in that situation, practicing a habit that doesn’t serve you.

I have to be honest here. This takes time.

In the beginning, it was difficult for me to recognize when my “worry” head was on because it felt so natural to me. But once I started paying more attention to my habitual thoughts and behaviors, I found it much easier to switch the script in those moments and instead practice some deep breathing to relax myself.

Action step: Take a moment to think about the times you already know your habitual autopilot-self takes over. What could you do to in those moments to break that pattern, re-engage with the world, and make a different choice?

Remember: What we practice, we get good at.

2. Focus on your physical sensations.

Another great way to practice new habits is to focus on how they make us feel in our bodies. I like to think of this in terms of openness (expansion) and tightness (contraction). I usually feel pretty open and soft in my heart space when I practice kindness, for example, and tight and tense in my belly when I practice being rude.

Our sense of expansion or contraction in our body can act as an “mindful shortcut,” giving us an easy way to determine what might be going on in our heads.

If we focus on how we physically feel in our bodies and the sensations our habits bring up for us, we can really start to distinguish between the ones that currently serve us and the ones that definitely don’t. Since our physical sensations often directly relate to our emotional experience, it’ll also provide us with a little motivation to continue practicing the things that make us feel expanded.

The issue most of us run into here is that we mostly walk around feeling completely out of touch with our bodies. In fact, it wasn’t until I really started to dive deep into yoga that I realized my body was constantly giving me important signals—and I was totally ignoring them.

The best way to begin observing your body is to sit in stillness and just notice your bodily experience, even if you start with just a few moments a day. The more you “check in” with your body, the more you’ll be able to tune in to what it’s trying to tell you.

When I started paying attention to my body, I noticed how different thoughts affected me in completely different ways. My worry made my body feel tight, tense, and achy, for example, whereas calm thoughts made my body feel soft, relaxed, and open. This helped draw my attention to my worrisome thoughts and choose to focus on my breathing in the present moment instead of on my “faux” reality.

Action step: Start your day by asking yourself one of these questions:

• “How do I want to feel today?”
• “What do I want to practice today?”
• “How do I want to live today?”

Then check in with yourself regularly throughout the day (setting up a reminder on your phone helps!) to observe how your body’s feeling. Pay particular attention to your heart, solar plexus, and belly areas. Is there a sense of expansion or contraction? Does this align with how you want to feel? What are you currently practicing? And does this align with what you want to practice?

Remember: What we practice, we get good at.

3. Set an intention.

We can also practice new habits by simply affirming to ourselves that it’s our intention to practice them.

Intentions are perfect because they’re designed to be a guideline rather than a goal. With goals, it’s far too easy to beat ourselves up if we don’t reach them, but with an intention, we can just start over again.

If we set an intention to be kind, or compassionate, or generous in the morning, we’re also far more likely to jump at opportunities to practice this as we move through our day. It helps us make decisions that are more aligned with the people we want to be, since our intention will still be fresh in our mind.

For example, I’ve recently been setting an intention to practice forgiveness. I realized that I’d been holding on to so much resentment, anger, and blame toward myself (and others) about my anxiety. I felt so much rage about my past—the years I’d spent constantly trying to please other people at the expense of my own needs; my first boyfriend’s extremely controlling behavior, which left me feeling utterly weak; and the pressure I’d felt growing up to be “perfect.”

So every morning I listen to a forgiveness meditation, which includes repeating to myself, “I see and feel the pain you’ve caused me, and it’s my intention to forgive you.” Then, as I’m about to go into my day, I remind myself that it’s my intention to continue to practice forgiveness.

Have I forgiven everyone (or myself) yet? No. But that’s beside the point.

The point is that every single day, I’m practicing.

Action step: Decide on at least one new habit you’d like to start practicing. How can you set this intention for yourself each day? How can you remind yourself of this intention when you go off track?

Remember: What we practice, we get good at.