Are You Ready?

"But you never said you liked me," said Iyanla.  "I won't accept that," says Oprah.  "What did you think that was?  I sat in the audience and gave you the mike."  Grabbing Oprah by both hands, Iyanla looks deeply into her eyes, "I didn't know what that was.  Hear me, you've got to hear me...I thought you wanted the work, not me."  A light bulb came on for Oprah.  "Iyanla wasn't ready to receive it," she later shared while discussing this very intense interaction with her friend, Gayle.  It was Oprah's 25th Season and she and Iyanla engaged in some long overdue talk about why Iyanla left The Oprah Show some years before.

Are you ready?  How many of us miss the opportunities that come into our lives because we aren't ready to receive it? 

These are questions I've been grappling with as I anticipate my next move.  I've been praying for quite some time about taking my writing to the next level.  Am I ready?, I ponder.  I'm reminded of the tabloid frenzy surrounding our own North Carolina native, Fantasia Barrino.  She is without a doubt a rare talent, a stellar performer and a powerful young woman.  American Idol was the opportunity for her dreams to come true.  Yet, as I have followed her career and her very public struggles, I've had to ask if she was ready for the very thing she dreamed of.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not judging her or Iyanla for that matter.  Everyone has a path they have to walk to grow into their best selves.  Just the same, I do believe that failure and yes, success, reveal what's fixed and what's broken in a person.  When one's life has not been properly nurtured and structured, success can cause it to spiral out of control.  What's broken in our lives and in our psyches moves from the background into the forefront at break-neck speed.

Do something for me.  Focus on what it is you want.  Get it in your mind.  Now ask yourself, "Am I ready?"  I know you want it.  You might want it so bad you can taste it.  But are you ready for it?  This step cannot be rushed because as Dr. Phil says, "you can't change what you won't acknowledge."  Besides, just because you aren't ready right this minute doesn't mean you can't get ready. 

To this very point, let me share a page from my own history.  Actually, I think I'd better give you the cliff note version lest this should go from an article to a short story.  I was not seeking home ownership.  Not at all.  But it dropped in my lap.  Once I got the notification that I qualified for a loan and realized that I--a post-divorced single mother who had filed bankruptcy--was going to be a homeowner, I had to get ready.  I had to make room in my life and in my finances for a home.  Now this is where it gets sticky for most first-time home buyers.  We spend all available resources on the front-end of getting ready.  We focus on raising the money for the down payment and negotiating the monthly payments.  But it doesn't stop there.  Borrowing another quote from Dr. Phil, "you can't just plan for the wedding, you have to plan for the marriage."

So, how do you start?  

Educate yourself.  The more you know, the less your ego can get you into trouble.  I know that is a bold statement but truth is, it is our ego that sabotages our success.  It's our ego that spends more than we can afford.  It's our ego that uses money to soothe emotional discomfort.  While I worked as a Substance Abuse Counselor, part of the therapeutic process was to help our clients to feed the rational part of their brain.  The more the client learned about his drug of choice, its affects on his body, the psychic pain that he took the drug to numb and the importance of a healthy support system, the less the pleasure centers of his brain could dominate and rule his life.  In the same way, I believe that educating yourself about where you want to go in life will increase the likelihood of your thriving in that new place. 

Come up with a plan.  Take stock of where you are and what you need to do to get to where you wanna go.  For instance, if you have a lot of bills or a lot of debt, come up with a plan to pay them off.  Or say you're coming into a lot of money, plan how you want to use your money.  If you want to get married, come up with a plan.  You may already have your hope chest or have found the perfect wedding dress, but what about your credit score?  What about your availability?  What about your relatability?  Do you have trust issues, unresolved anger, character defects that you need to resolve?  All that is part of the planning.

Write it down.  Write down your end result and develop a way to get there.  Don't overwhelm yourself.  For me, dividing my plan into bite-size, doable pieces made sticking to it less intimidating.  Going back to my home buying experiences, my plan was to be out of debt by the time my first mortgage payment was due.  Seemed pretty ambitious until I wrote down the income I'd have, the bills I'd have to pay and the frills I could do without.  Not only did I find it doable, but I got it done in two months time.  I checked off and celebrated each benchmark accomplishment.  It felt so good!

Hold yourself accountable.  Businesses have advisers, bookkeepers have CPAs, athletes have coaches and we need someone to help us stay true to our plan.  This is very important.  No matter how motivated you are at first, life and time will distract and interfere.  At those times, it is key to have someone to ignite your resolve and to encourage you to finish strong.   That's why I see a life coach regularly.  I tend to be more accountable to someone I'm paying.

Are you ready?  Let today be your day to bust a move!