Go before you’re ready

The stage does not ask whether your hands have stopped trembling.

The audition does not wait for the day your doubts fall silent.

Life, too, has zero interest in your certainty. 

It simply says:

Go. Before you’re ready.

Trust.

Go before every answer has been settled.

Go before the self-doubt monster deceives you and robs everyone who was waiting for you to say yes. “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win.” -Measure for Measure, act 1, scene 4

Go before you fixate on the (cowardly) critics gazing at you from their high places.

Trust that the preparation has indeed prepared you well, and then let go.

Trust that the work has turned you into a worthy vessel, not a master.

Trust that your instincts and your voice have been shaped to carry your role.

You may discover that “ready” was never the absence of fear, but the presence of willingness and courage. To step into the story and let it live. To give it a chance at life.

The scene asks for YOU, not your certainty. It rejoices at the chance to be birthed into a four-dimensional experience!

The world also asks for you, not your certainty.

Fear not!

Begin that scary conversation that cannot be rehearsed, not fully anyway.

Step into that calling, though it comes with no guarantees.

Move your feet and walk through that door.

And if you end up running into a wall, at least you got some steps in. And you discovered an entire wall. What an explorer you are!

The disciples left their nets before they knew where they were going.

Mary said yes before she knew what that yes would require.

So go.

Not recklessly. 

But with quiet confidence, seizing the moment, when it arrives, to step into the arena.

Not because you’re finished.

Not because the risk is gone.

Not because you’re in control.

Not because you’re being forced.

But because you’re faithful enough and brave enough to begin, knowing who you are and knowing who’s with you.