There’s No Such Thing as “Ready”

In this episode, Rachel Cicioni explores the myth of 'being ready' to start a business, emphasizing that clarity and confidence come from action, not perfection. She shares insights on overcoming imposter syndrome, the cost of waiting, and how to distinguish between being ready and being available.

Chapters
00:00 Overcoming the Myth of 'Readiness'
02:40 The Importance of Action in Business
04:48 Understanding Imposter Syndrome
07:25 The Cost of Waiting to Start
08:55 Ready vs. Not Available
11:07 Creating Your 'Ready or Not' Moment

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Teacher to Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Siccioni, former classroom teacher turned entrepreneur and mentor to educators building their own unique teacher businesses. This is a space for teachers who are curious about alternatives to the classroom, exploring private practice and other multifaceted work, and for those who want to know what success can look like beyond the classroom. I'm glad you're here. Now let's get into today's conversation. One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves when we want to start something new, especially a business, is this. I'm just not ready yet. And it sounds responsible, thoughtful, even smart. But most of the time, it's not really about readiness. It's usually about protection. Because if you never start, then you never have to find out what happens if it doesn't work. When I started thinking about being ready or being not ready, the first thing I thought about was hide and go seek. I remember getting completely stuck trying to figure out where to hide. I would overthink everything. That spot's too obvious. She's definitely going to look there, or I don't think I can actually fit there, or do I have time to move things around so I can put something in front of myself? And I would walk around kind of frozen, trying to figure out the perfect spot until I heard, ready or not, here I come. And suddenly I had to move. And I remember so clearly that once I picked a spot and just went for it, that feeling of decision, of action felt so much better than feeling stuck. Even if I got found right away, I remember being able to draw that comparison between being stuck overthinking versus making the decision and just going for it. From there, I started thinking about how that compared to business and how similar it is to playing hide and go seek. Because if you're a teacher, you've been trained to prepare, right? We had to do lesson plans and unit plans and differentiated instruction. And how are we going to adapt on the fly to so many different variables and make this content accessible to so many different people coming from so many different places with so many different needs? We have to think through every possible outcome and anticipate problems before they happen. So that way we can get it right on the first try and in front of an audience. So of course, you feel like you need to be ready. But let me ask you this. Have you ever finished a lesson plan and thought, that's perfect? There's nothing I could possibly do to improve this. No. Because even when you plan ahead, even when you've taught that lesson before, you're still tweaking it on the drive to school. You're still adjusting it while you're teaching it. And you're definitely thinking about how to improve it the next time. You don't become clear before you teach the lesson. You become clear because you've taught the lesson. And your business works the exact same way. You don't get clarity before you start. You get clarity from starting. You get clarity from the action. You don't get confident and then launch. You launch, you start working your business, and that's what builds your confidence. And the first version, it's not supposed to be perfect. It can't be perfect. Perfect doesn't even exist. It needs to be real, it needs to be authentic, and it needs to be good enough to work. You're going to be tweaking it and making it better and more streamlined for the rest of your business life. So let's talk about what's actually happening when you are saying you're not ready. Because most of the time it's not about your website or your offer. And it's not usually even about your pricing. It's about this. If I don't start, I can't fail. If I don't launch, I don't have to be seen. If I don't try, I can keep believing that I could have succeeded. And all of that feels a lot safer than finding out the truth or the potential truths. And this is where imposter syndrome gets its energy, gets its power. Because almost every teacher I've worked with, and I mean almost every single one, has felt this. I have felt it. Even as a veteran teacher walking into the first day of school with a new group of students, I still felt like a fraud, even after a decade. So going into business, absolutely. Even though I knew exactly what I was doing. So when you step into a business, of course that voice gets louder. When you step into a new role and a new identity, like we talked about last week, of course that voice is going to get louder. But that voice does not mean you're not ready. It's just evidence that you care, that this is important enough to you, that's your ego keeping you safe from what you don't know. And what you don't know is that it could be amazing. Last week I talked about how you have to get those fears out in the open. Think about what is the worst possible outcome, shed light on it, explore that, let your anxious monkey mind do all of its things to it. And the best possible outcome. Shed light on that and let your monkey mind think about all of the wonderful possibilities of what could happen. And then make an informed decision from there, not one that's driven by fear. And here's something else that I find really interesting is when I compare your classroom conditioning to your business perception. In the classroom, our experience is constantly being evaluated. Our credentials, our education, our certifications, our experience. We are used to having to prove ourselves. But when you step into business, something really shifts. And you wouldn't have any way of knowing this if you didn't know a teacher who was already doing this business, or if I wasn't telling you. But when you step into business, something really shifts. Families and adults don't typically interrogate your credentials the same way school administrators do. In fact, they assume that if you have a business, you can do what you say you can do. And a lot of our big credentials and certifications, they don't really mean anything to them. So think about it. When was the last time you went to a new doctor and asked to see their degrees and their certifications? I'm not saying that we shouldn't, but most people don't. We assume competence. And as a business owner, you are given that same baseline level of trust. And it feels really strange coming from where we come from, where the baseline is mistrust. And we have to constantly prove ourselves. But if you don't step into that role as a business owner, then you don't get to feel what it feels like to receive that trust. And here's another part that I don't think we talk about enough. Waiting has a cost. Remember when I said every business owner pays some ratio of time and money in their business. Waiting has a time cost and a money cost. It also has a mindset cost. Because every month you wait, you're not just staying the same, you're reinforcing the belief that you can't do this. You're giving more energy to that imposter syndrome and that voice that just wants to keep you safe. You're also delaying your income, your growth, and you're delaying the arrival of the life that you say you want. Now I want to make an important distinction because sometimes when someone says or thinks I'm not ready, what they actually mean is I don't have the capacity right now. And that's different. You can be ready and not be available. And that's two separate things. So here's a quick way to check Am I not ready or am I not available? If I gave you your first paying client tomorrow, could you serve them? If the answer is yes, then you're ready. If the answer is no, now we know what needs to be built. Now we know what needs to be worked on. But ready and not available are two separate things. Now here's an example I want to share. Last week I had a one-on-one session with one of my teachers. And she is ready. She is a hundred percent ready. She is ready in her mindset. Every part of her business has been built out. We know her marketing, we know her services, how much we're pricing every service, how long each service is going to run for. We know her marketing funnel. We know everything. Her website is beautiful. Everything is ready to go. But she's not available yet. So we have even worked on the strategy to get her from where she is right now to when she's available and what type of slower marketing we're going to be using now. And then when to heat up the marketing to make sure that when she is available, her clients are ready to book. The way that not being ready shows up is different from the way not being available shows up. She is out there, she's visible, and her clients can find her now, even though she's not yet available to serve them. Now, does that mean that everything in her business is perfect? Definitely not. Absolutely not. We don't know because she hasn't actually had an opportunity to work her business yet. A lot of these things we don't get to figure out until we run somebody through all of our workflow systems. We've done the best testing that we can do. We made sure that all of the automations and workflow systems are working properly so that way she is ready when she's available, that those two things happen at the same time. But that doesn't mean by any means that it's perfect. What it means is it's good enough. So what does good enough actually look like? Good enough means you can clearly explain what you offer, someone can pay you, and you can deliver the result. That's really it. Everything else, you kind of have to figure out as you go. Now, because I've been through this process, I've been able to help her set up things based on the knowledge that I've learned from having my own business now for almost six years. But as far as how it's going to work specifically for her and in her business, we won't know until it starts running. So which are you? Ready or not available? Well, here's what I want you to do. I want you to create your own ready or not, here I go, moment. Pick a date, say it out loud, tell someone, and then do it. Post it, launch it, offer it. Because that moment when you made the decision and you took action, that is where everything changes. You don't become ready and then start. Most people don't. Most people don't have the availability challenges that this particular client has. Most of the time, you start and that's what makes you ready. You start and then you build the confidence. There is no version of you that feels ready before you begin. It's the action that brings the clarity and the confidence. It's the awkward consultations you have that make you feel ready for the next ones. There is no amount of data that you can analyze that is going to make you feel ready before you start. So there is no version of you that feels ready before you begin. There's only the version of you who decided to do it anyway, that decided, ready or not, here I go. Next week, we'll be talking about strategy. So if you asked yourself those questions, you're like, okay, I am ready. And I could take on a client if you handed me one. Then next week's episode is for you because we will be talking about strategy. In fact, I'm going to go over the first three moves to start your business without overthinking it. Until then, I hope you have a great week. Thank you for listening. If today's episode resonated with you, please share it with a colleague or leave a review. This helps the conversation reach other teachers who may need it. You can learn more about what I do and how to work with me at theprivatepracticeteacher.org. Best wishes always.