Do you think you are ready?  Ready for what?  Is she kidding me?  I don’t have time to be ready for something else!  Is that what you are telling yourself right now?  I know…I said those same exacts words over four years ago.  As I was driving around my home town (this word just sounds funny coming from a Southern California girl) this morning, I was caught thinking again.  Yeah…it happens.  But I was thinking about what my life looked like many months ago…even five years ago.  As much as I tried to recall any goals or ambitions I had then, I could not recall one.  Not one.  Sure, getting my sons through school heading off to college was an objective, but that was going to happen whether I had a say in it or not.  But today, I was trying to remember what I wanted to happen in my life.  Not what I wanted the boys to study in college.  It was clear that I had no real direction.  Nothing to aim for, nothing to challenge me, nothing to make me better. Do you think we are really ready but just don’t know it?  Are we waiting for Glinda, the good witch from the “Wizard of Oz” to come down and tell us, “You always had the power, my dear”? Well, I am here to tell you that is not going to happen.  It just won’t.  Stop looking and waiting for someone else to tell you when YOU are ready!  Your are NEVER going to think that you are ready.  When I got pregnant with our first son, I never said, “Wait…I am not ready!” I believed enough in my husband and the next step we were wanting to take and that when the time came, I would be ready.  (Note: I wasn’t ready — he came about two and half weeks early.)  So, what does this all mean?  I have challenged my women’s empowerment group to keep a journal and write three goals in it for themselves and how they expect to achieve those goals.  I want you challenge you to do the same.  Because if we write down what we want to do, it becomes real.  It becomes tangible and something that make you accountable to follow through.  But don’t just write down a goal so specific that it cannot be attained.  Make it more generic like, “I want to try something I never would have thought I would ever do.” I will have you know that I have done at least one thing a year since I started saying yes to more opportunities and taking more chances. Find the courage to be ambitious. Ask questions. Be excited about being uncomfortable. I am here to tell you that you are wasting time, waiting to be ready.  Ever seen a race that begins, “Ready…are you sure?…if you aren’t, step way…everyone else that is ready…set…go”?  It doesn’t happen.  In a split second, you have to decide. You are ready.  You just think you aren’t.  But just hold on… and trust that you are ready to receive it now. Believe me, I didn’t think I was ready either.  But here I am…with more goals and ambitions than I think I have ever had.  The timing might just be perfect and now is the best time to  “Live Like There’s No Tomorrow” By Selena Gomez