Sorry, is anyone sitting there?

I’m truly blessed to know, love, admire and cherish many incredible women, and while they each carry unique distinction (that makes them so fricking awesome) many also share one thing I wish they didn't.

They are talented. Probably more talented than they believe. They've spent years being bloody excellent. They show up, they deliver, they earn trust in the way that competent, careful people do, one reliable thing at a time.

And they are waiting.

Not obviously. They wouldn't put it that way. They'd say they want to be more prepared. They want to feel more confident. They want to make sure the timing is right, or that they have enough experience, or that they've done enough of the right kind of thing before they put their hand up, say yes, step into the room.

They are waiting until they are ready.

I know them well because I have been them. I know most of us have.

The problem with waiting until you're ready is that ready tends to move.

You get close, and it shuffles forward. You build the experience you thought you needed, and it turns out there's more experience you hadn't accounted for. The goalposts don't move maliciously. They move because we're the ones setting them, 

and somewhere along the way we learned that a moving target is safer than a stationary one.

A moving target means the moment of reckoning stays in the future, just far enough away to be comfortable.

I've been thinking about this because of a conversation I had last week about who puts themselves forward and who doesn't. Not in some systemic sense. It was not one of those ‘setting the world to rights’ conversations. Just in the ordinary, everyday stuff. Who replies to the email. Who says yes to the thing that's slightly outside their comfort zone.Who speaks up in the meeting they've been invited to but don't feel quite senior enough for. Who orders what they actually want instead of what seems reasonable. Who asks for the thing they need rather than waiting to see if anyone notices. Who takes the compliment without immediately explaining why they don't deserve it.

The pattern is depressingly consistent.

There's research behind this, of course. You already know it. The finding that men apply for jobs when they meet sixty percent of the criteria and women wait until they meet a hundred…. I've read it, I've quoted it, and I still catch myself waiting for ninety-five.

But readiness isn't really a threshold. It's a story. One we keep telling ourselves about what we still need before we're allowed to begin.

The story is very convincing. It sounds like diligence. It sounds like standards. It sounds, frankly, like wisdom. Surely it's better to be prepared than to rush in?

But preparation and postponement are different things, and they can feel almost identical from the inside.

One of the things I love about this community is that I get the opportunity to put women in rooms with other women who have done things before they felt ready. Not recklessly. Not without fear. But anyway.

Women who said yes before they had the full picture, and figured out the rest on the way.

This month I'm enormously glad to be introducing our first guest speaker in the Women in Leadership Community.

Fern Wise is a seasoned international education leader and, once you know a little more about her, one of those people who makes you reconsider your own excuses. She is also, I can tell you from personal knowledge, one of those people who occupies a room in a way that makes you want to make a beeline for her.

Her session is called Stop Waiting Until You're Ready.

I imagine she has a thing or two to say on the subject.

If you have been waiting  for the right moment, the right credentials, the right version of yourself, this one is for you.

Three things to sit with this month

Notice what you're calling preparation.
Is it building something real, or is it the act of staying comfortable for a little longer?

Find someone who did the thing before they felt ready.
Not to make yourself feel bad. Just to see what it looks like up close.

Ask yourself honestly.

Is this preparation, or have you just not given yourself permission to be a little bit less ready than you'd like?

Come and join us in the Women In Leadership Community.  Fern's session is on October 8th.