The mindset shift that transforms beginners into leaders and CEOs

The difference between achievement and falling short isn’t as big as you might think. It can be summed up in a single mindset shift that sparks action: 

Start before you’re ready. 

It isn’t a new idea. It’s one that best-in-class businesspeople, athletes, and executives have leaned on to create momentum and minimize hesitancy. 

“Starting,” in this case, doesn’t mean brainstorming or outlining your plan of attack. It means action — getting out there, working to build or create something, putting yourself in a position of uncertainty. 

There’s plenty of good that comes with strategizing beforehand, but it’s also tempting to rely on strategizing as an excuse to delay action. Extensive research can often be a synonym for procrastination. Often, I’ve been sucked into unending research and reading that only ended up delaying my ability to make progress. 

I was fooling myself with over-preparing and not taking enough action. 

Starting before you’re ready means betting on your current capabilities, as well as your capacity to acquire new skills and incorporate lessons on-the-job. 

Rarely will you feel “ready” to start a new project or challenge or ambition, just as there’s no such thing as a perfect situation. If you were to wait until the optimal conditions presented themselves, you’d never start anything — and the idea of remaining static should scare you because there’s often an even greater risk to doing nothing. 

You don’t need to know everything when you’re just starting out, and that should be encouraging — it means you can simply give it a go and see what happens, because you’ll be able to rely on what you learn along the way.

Starting before you are ready means you leave room for both failure and growth.

It gives you room to expand your knowledge. It also protects you from being intimidated by the experience or knowledge you might be lacking. 

What’s more, action means, usually, mistakes. And mistakes are gold — they give us the most memorable lessons and the bounciest springboards. The knowledge you gain from mistakes can carry you forward, and give you a slight edge for the next time you try that same task again. 

This is an action-oriented mindset. It requires a bias for action and engagement. But in taking action, it instills the habit of staying in motion, and seeking progress. 

If the thing you want to do requires more experience than you have, offer to shadow someone who has that job, or offer to work for free in an environment that gives you the right skills. Unpaid action is better than unpaid inaction. 

If you want to write a book, don’t wait until you have an idea for a book — just start writing every day so that you’re improving upon the skills required to write a book. 

Starting before you’re ready demands a willingness to do the work before you understand the rewards it may bring or the risks it may entail. Getting skin in the game will teach you how to fail and also what you need to learn in order to succeed. 

Take solace in the fact that, with enough time, you can learn just about anything. As trite as this sounds, it is true that every expert was once a beginner and every all-star was once a rookie. 

You have to suck for a long time before you can be good at anything. Might as well start that process sooner than later.

Start before you’re ready.

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I used these ideas to write a bestselling book in a year while working full-time as a journalist. Learn more on Amazon.

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