What Are You Waiting For?

At the end of September, my dad would have been 70, and I've been reflecting on just how much life can change in a couple of years.

When he died, I don't think I had any idea how much losing him was going to change me too.

Obviously, I would rather he was still here. But the beauty that came out of it was that it made me look at my own life so differently. It made me question why I felt so stuck and what it was that was making me feel like that. Why I spent so much time worrying about what people thought. Why I kept making myself smaller, always second-guessing myself and putting things off until I felt more ready.

Grief has a way of stripping things back and kind of waking you up. All the noise you've been carrying around suddenly feels a lot less important and the things you've been avoiding aren't quite as easy to ignore.

So much has changed since then. I qualified and started building a business doing work I genuinely love. I started coaching, speaking, putting myself out there online and doing so many things that would once have terrified me.

Perhaps most importantly, I've started showing up as myself and not giving as much of a shit what people think.

Not perfectly, and definitely not without overthinking things sometimes, but I keep doing them anyway and I keep pushing myself outside of my comfort zone.

The waiting makes sense

So many of the women I work with are waiting too. Waiting until the kids are older or work calms down, until they've lost the weight, until they feel more confident, until the timing's right.

From the outside, it can look like they've got it all handled. On the inside, there's often a quiet voice saying there must be more than this, and an equally loud one saying not yet.

That waiting isn't laziness and it isn't a lack of ambition. Very often it's protection because somewhere along the way you learned that being seen felt risky, that getting it wrong had a cost or that it was safer and easier to keep everyone else happy first. Those patterns made sense once and helped you cope and protected you in whatever way you needed at the time, but they can also keep you stuck in the same place for years. They tell you that you're being sensible when really, you're staying with what feels safe and familiar.

Ready isn't a feeling you wait for

There's something about losing someone that makes time feel different. It reminds you that there probably isn't going to be some magical future moment when you suddenly feel completely ready to live the life you keep thinking about. Sometimes you just have to start.

I don't think I've ever felt completely ready before doing something that really mattered to me. Confidence has come through doing the thing and then proving to myself that I can handle it, rather than waiting for the fear or doubt to disappear first.

Starting doesn't have to mean anything huge. It can just be the first small step. It might be sending the message, booking the course, saying the thing out loud to someone you trust or even just admitting to yourself what it is you actually want.

If there's something you've been dreaming about, feeling pulled towards or telling yourself you'll do one day, ask yourself: What are you waiting for? 🩷

Jess x