I know I can get down this, it just won’t be pretty.

That’s what I tell myself every time I’m standing at the top of a gnarly, mogel-y double black diamond trail on my snowboard.

But I never give myself too much time to think about it.

I just go.

In a way, if you’re “ready,” to do something, you’re probably late to the game. Because you can always BE more ready and prepared, but nothing can beat what you gain from actually doing it.

I am confident that right now you’re reading this post, and there’s probably something you’ve been thinking about doing that you don’t feel ready to do.

You’re not ready to quit your job, even though you think about it all the time.

You’re not ready to start a side hustle because you’re not good enough yet.

You’re not ready to move because you don’t have enough money saved yet.

The problem?

There’s no right or good time to quit your job. You can always improve yourself to get better at a service you offer, whether it’s editing, writing, design, development or babysitting. And you can always save more money.

You have to start before you’re ready.

I did not think I was ready to start freelancing in November.

Before getting laid off, I was planning on starting my freelance business when I moved to Colorado the following year.

I mean, if I was ready to go off on my own, wouldn’t I have left Elite Daily sooner?

You’d think so… But in my mind, I wasn’t ready.

I thought I had to have services lined up, a website ready to go, a menu of what I offer clients, warm leads… I had NONE of that.

In fact, I barely thought I had any skills worthy of getting hired to do them for other people outside of writing clickbait. And honestly? I didn’t really — not when I got let go.

However, what I didn’t realize was that I had actually been preparing for starting my own freelance business without even knowing it.

In the year I worked at Elite Daily, here’s everything I learned, just during my day-to-day:

• How to write for the internet
• How to use WordPress
• How to use Mailchimp
• What the online media landscape looks like
• How to write catchy headlines
• How to become a better writer
• All about SEO
• Google Analytics basics
• What the blogosphere looks like
• How to get people to open and respond to emails
• How to find the email address of pretty much anyone
• How to pitch (and how not to pitch)
• What “embargo” means

I could probably write another 50 bullets of what I learned OUTSIDE fo work too, like all about online business, copywriting basics and online marketing.

What I didn’t realize at first was that I had skills that people actually found useful, even though I didn’t see them as all that special or different.

You probably have several skills and a bunch of knowledge that someone else would pay good money to have access to. Just think about that for a second. Remember that when you start your own business, it doesn’t have to be marketing, sales, website design or anything technical like that.

You can pretty much build a business around any skill, as long as you know how to find and reach the people who want to learn that skill. 

Start before you’re ready. You don’t need a business degree. You don’t even need a college degree. You just need to START!

What has surprised me most about my entrepreneurial journey so far is that people will hire me and pay me to produce stuff I’ve NEVER done before.

Things like:

• Writing LinkedIn profiles
• Writing sales pages
• Editing a book
• Writing email funnels
• Social media management

Honestly, everything I’ve done that isn’t blog writing, I got paid to learn on the job. 

Isn’t that amazing? I never knew that could be the case. Even though I didn’t feel ready or worth it, I was. Now? If someone tells me I have to have experience to do s

When I have an opportunity to work on a project that I’m interested in, but have never done, I just tell myself, “I can get down this.”

Starting before you’re ready means saying “yes” to opportunities, and figuring out the HOW on the way down.

Starting before you’re ready means instilling confidence in yourself.

Starting before you’re ready means that you’re giving yourself the gift of a challenge. Challenges are what you learn from. Challenges make you better. 

I can’t say my success rate is 100% with every project I’ve done, and that’s okay. I’m saying yes and figuring it out on the way down. I know you can do the same.

At the end of the day, you have two options.

1. Continue to think about the thing you want to start, but do nothing. Save yourself from complete failure and don’t grow as a person.
2. Start the thing, even if you might fail, and learn from it no matter what. Gain more self-confidence and value.

It’s up to you.

So. Are you thinking of starting something? email me about it here: taliasarakoren[at]gmail[dot]com.