Ready Is A Decision

Harsh Patel, writing on Medium about waiting to feel ready:

Readiness is not a feeling at all. It is a decision.

The rest of the post is the usual self-help stuff, put a hand on your chest, feel your heartbeat, you are allowed to begin scared. I very nearly closed the tab but that one line was enough of a takeaway because it describes every stupid thing I have ever done.

I have never felt ready for any of my life. I was not ready to run a marathon the first time, I was definitely not ready to run every four hours for 48 hours, and I was nowhere near ready to launch an app to strangers or to get in a lake with a shoulder that has been repaired more than once. If I had waited for the feeling I would still be waiting.

What I do instead is cheat. I take the decision away from myself before I have time to think about it. Entering London through a charity place and collecting sponsorship straight away meant there was no backing out, the money was already in. Telling people about Micro Social when I still felt like a complete imposter meant I had to ship it. Entering a triathlon at Rutland Water before I could swim properly meant I had to learn, and quickly. My family think this is a running joke, the birthday challenges and the entering things I have no business entering. It is a joke, but also the only system I have found that works.

The fear does not go anywhere. I stood in the swim pen at the Vitruvian in September wondering what on earth I was doing, and I have more of those starts booked for next year knowing full well the same thought is coming back every time. My son wrote a half marathon time in my birthday card two weeks later and I was not ready for that either, I had barely recovered, and I went and ran it. What has changed over the years is that I have stopped listening to the feeling as if it knows something. A racing heart on the start line is not a sign that I should not be there. It is what a start line feels like.

This is where the Medium post loses me. Deciding is not enough. Deciding to do a 70.3 got me nothing at all. Five months of turning up and doing the sessions, including the ones in the pool I hated, got me across the line. The decision was only the bit that stopped me talking myself out of the five months, and that is all it ever needs to be.