Maybe readiness is actually a red herring
Hi! New here? Welcome to the Uplifters! I'm Aransas Savas. I've spent the last 20 years at the intersection of behavior change research and coaching. On The Uplifters Podcast, we share diverse stories of women who have found something beautiful on the other side of the hard stuff. Despite self-doubt and fear (and honestly, who doesn't have those?), they've done big, brave things anyway, and show us how we can too!
Terry Grahl wasn't ready to transform a women's shelter. She had four young kids, a decorating business, and zero volunteers. When she visited that dormitory where 30 women slept on prison bunk beds with nursing home bedspreads, her first instinct was to run.
But she decided to do it anyway. Even though she had no freaking idea how.
I've been thinking about Terry from last week's Uplifters episode because her experience upends something I see constantly – this myth that we need to feel ready before we can be brave. That we need the plan, the resources, the confidence, the perfect timing lined up like cute little ducks in a row.
But here's what I've noticed in two decades of coaching women and in my own messy journey: I've never felt ready for any of the big moves that mattered most.
I wasn't ready to leave corporate. I had a mortgage, a reputation, a clear path to the next promotion. The idea of starting my own practice felt like jumping off a cliff with a homemade parachute. But something inside me knew I couldn't keep pretending that life fit anymore.
I wasn't ready to start The Uplifters Podcast. I'd never interviewed anyone professionally, had no audience, and honestly wasn't sure anyone would want to hear these stories. But the conversations I was having with brave women were too powerful to keep to myself.
I definitely wasn't ready to leave the city seven months ago. The logistics alone felt overwhelming, never mind the emotional complexity of uprooting our entire life. But we'd outgrown where we were, and staying felt like choosing comfort over growth.
Terry calls it "putting the cart before the horse". Instead of waiting to feel ready, she focused on how the women would feel in their transformed space – laughing, sitting on a clean floor, sleeping with dignity.
Then, she asked for help. She asked questions. She stopped focusing on what she didn’t have and started using what she did have: supportive friends, a free Facebook account, the moxy to cold email furniture companies, and most of all, a strong “why.”
My client Rachel just left her executive role to start a nonprofit for girls in STEM. "I keep waiting to feel like I know what I'm doing," she told me last week. "But what if that feeling never comes?" What if it's not supposed to? What if readiness isn't the green light we think it is?
Maybe readiness is actually a red herring. A convenient excuse our brains offer when the path ahead feels uncertain. The women who change the world don't wait to feel ready. They act.
I felt pulled toward something I couldn't yet name when corporate stopped fitting. You might be feeling that tug right now – toward a conversation, a change, a leap that makes no logical sense.
The myth of readiness keeps us small and safe and stuck. It whispers that we need more credentials, more certainty, more time. But what if courage isn't about feeling ready? What if it's about choosing to take a step, even when – especially when – we can't see the whole staircase?
Terry's organization has now transformed hundreds of shelters across the country. She publishes books, appears on national TV, and has created programs that remind children they don't have to wait for Superman because they have everything within them.
None of that was in the plan when she said yes to painting one wall.
What's one thing you've been waiting to feel ready for that might actually be waiting for you to act?
So grateful to be on this messy road with you,
Aransas
Listen to Terry’s whole story here for living proof that we can move forward without feeling ready.
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