In late 2012 I learned how to skydive and did my first solo jump, a big achievement for me, but now I realise it was only the second biggest development I had that day. I learned something amazing that day, and it was because of someone else.

There was someone I'd warmed up to a little bit in the group of first-timers like me, who was just as excited and nervous about her first jump as the rest of us. Over that weekend we'd jumped through all the hoops, learned the emergency procedures and the malfunction terminology and protocol, learned how to land hard and minimise injury, to navigate the wind and field and land more or less where we wanted, and by sunday morning we were ready.

We were all geared up and in the plane when we reached the altitude and the door opened. That damn door opening on your first jump is horrifying. That horror built on top of all the anxiety that had built up on the slow ascent along with the fear of screwing something up or being the 1 in 700 jumps where something minor goes wrong, making a nervous shaking mess out of the passengers in our tiny Cessna.

The first of us in line hesitantly moved into position and waited for the order, and then he was gone. Whoosh. Then the next one and the next one.
My friend was immediately before me in the line, around 5th or 6th place. I could tell she was particularly nervous, but she sat in the door and waited for the order. The order came, and she said "No". "No, no, no, I can't do it, I'm not doing it, I can't jump, I refuse, get me up." Even the planeload of people encouraging her and the instructor urging her, she refused. I jumped next, followed by the rest of the plane. She later told me "I'll try again next year when I'm ready".

"I'll try again next year when I'm ready".

"Yep. Oughta be ready aaaaany day now. "

That sentence caused a realisation to drop on me like a tonne of bricks. None of us were ready, really. We were prepared by the course sure, but nobody is ever ready to jump out of a plane for the first time. We became ready to jump by jumping, and it took someone not jumping for me to see that.

I've just started parkour recently and I was worried that I'm not ready for it. But I am ready for it, I was made ready for it by going to the gym and doing parkour.

I feel like this is applicable to pretty much everything - Don't wait to be ready, get ready, and there's no better way to get ready than by doing it before you're ready.

Will Rogers said "Good judgement comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgement" and I wholeheartedly agree. I'm running a business now even though I have very little idea of what the hell I'm doing, because I want to learn how to run a business and I like doing things the hard way. The hard way is, funnily enough, hard, but I am learning my lessons as I proceed with my business in a way that I'm never going to forget. For instance:

Sure the hard way road is covered in nails and land-mines, but how else are you going to learn about land-mines? Books?!

I had my website and logo designed without any form of contract, so when the website was finished it had taken much much longer than I had anticipated, and since I was paying by the hour it ended up costing over $2000 more that I had set as my budget.
The very first client I had, I met in person to discuss the game and the pay structure. I was terrified and was feeling around in the dark as to what I should and could ask for, and what scope of project I could achieve at that time. In my fear and total lack of knowledge I just decided to agree to whatever he suggested first. This was a poultry amount on a pay scheme that allowed him to make unlimited changed to my work free of charge until he said he was happy with that stage.
When negotiating a fee for both of my current projects, I had entirely forgotten about taxes. I've never had to do taxes before and they didn't even enter my mind, so the pay for the game and experiment I'm making now is only just barely enough to cover the fees for the software I use to create. So far I have seen no profit from this business whatsoever, although that might change if I get some sort of tax refund.

I didn't learn those lessons by hearing about how I heard about someone else doing them and maybe I should avoid it, it takes a wiser man than me to learn from others mistakes. These are experiences I've personally felt the ramifications of and been directly affected by, lessons I'm never going to forget as long as I live. Yes I'm getting bruised along the way but it's how I get stronger, and so long as I persist I'm going to inevitably get better and better, at the very least because there are less and less mistakes left to be made.

I'll leave you with this message from zenpencils.com, my favourite online artist.

Blog

You can't wait for ready