How to be prepared in business and in life

Imagine you’re a lumberjack and you’re going out into the woods to chop down trees. Would you show up at the last minute and not sharpen your axe and use a dull axe to go and chop down trees? Or would you show up prepared and ready for action?

I have to tell you that a lot of us do that in our lives and our businesses. We show up unprepared. We don’t prepare ahead of time. There’s a saying that goes: “If you fail to prepare, you need to prepare to fail.” This is so true in so many ways. 

If you know me, then you know I’m a proponent of ‘messy is beautiful’, doing things along the way and being flexible but I also understand that if you don’t sharpen that axe, and you don’t prepare for what you are going to do, you will not have the momentum or success you could have had. 

Think about it as paying up first. I’m going to pay up first by getting up and not hitting the snooze button. I’m going to pay up first by taking the time to do a few minutes of research. I’m going to pay up first because doing so is sexy and beautiful. 

 Don’t get stuck and over complicate things but DO PREPARE. 

Another great example of paying up first is meal prepping. I just had a hurried up lunch with my husband because I didn’t prepare well. I hate that feeling and I’m sure you do too. That feeling that you are behind like there is something you could have done better. Preparation causes these things to subside, it causes the pressure to decrease and it causes the feeling of uneasiness to go away. 

So I think it is really important that we get into the mindset that we are going to pay up first. We are going to spend the time sharpening our axes and doing meal prep if that’s what you need. We are going to spend the time getting a morning and evening routine for our success so that it's not a constant pressure and so that our lives can be sexy and beautiful.  

I don’t want you to create an unsexy business and an unsexy life. A sexy business and a sexy life require the principle of preparation. 

So what can you do today to prepare for that thing coming up or that event or that launch you are going to do online? Whatever it is, how can you prepare? 

Take a few notes, get a few ideas and continue to tweak it so in that you can understand the principle of paying upfront and preparing ahead of time because that is sexy and that is beautiful.