Get Ready Before You Need to Be Ready

In my day job providing career development for professionals of all ages and stages, I’ve been spending a lot of time recently repeating this phrase: You need to get ready now so that you will be ready when you need to be. Lots of people are losing their jobs right now or are under threat of that happening soon. Unfortunately, many have not put away money, “just in case,” or spent time building their networks or developing their skills when they could.

That doesn’t mean it’s too late to start. But it’s a much different experience reaching out to people with whom you have built relationships and connections already than reaching out to people you’ve never met, asking for their help. It’s a much different process to be looking for a job when you know you won’t be able to pay your rent and bills next month than when you know you have a safety net that can carry you for a while. It’s a different experience when you have already built your resume and developed your skills than when you realize you need to do that work now to be qualified for the next step.

Let’s be clear, for most of these people (certainly all the ones I’ve spoken to), this is not a situation of their own making. They’re not losing their jobs because they are bad at them. There are many external factors at play, from the federal government to shrinking budgets to AI and more. And even if these things aren’t impacting you now, there will come a time when each of us will need to find a new job, either by choice or by force. What does it mean to get ready, now, so that you will be ready when and if one of these events happens to you?

This mindset applies to all sorts of scenarios in our lives. We put money away now so that we can hopefully retire later. We take care of small issues with our homes now so that they don’t become bigger, catastrophic issues later. We take care of our health now so that we can live a full and rich life later. And I’m the first to admit, this sort of delayed gratification is hard. We are hardwired for that immediate payoff. But remind yourself, when possible: your future self will thank you.

I’m trying to take that approach to my writing these days, too (strong emphasis on the word “trying”). I’ve invested a lot of time, and no small amount of money, over the past few years getting feedback from editors, writing partners, agents, and others. In some ways I could say that it has not been successful. I’m not, after all, an agented and published author, yet. But every bit of that feedback has made me better, and I can see it in my current WIP. All of it has been an effort towards getting ready so that I will be ready when I need to be.

In a couple of weeks I’m attending the North Carolina Writers Network annual conference. As part of that experience, there is an option to add on a feedback session with an agent or editor on a short excerpt (twenty pages). I wasn’t going to participate, since my WIP is as drafty as can be, and definitely is not ready to be seen by an agent. But then I thought, why not? Why not get some feedback now which could give me critical wisdom to reshape the entire project so that when I’m ready to submit for real, I’ll know it’s really ready? I’m planning to do more of this over the next few months, to gather as much feedback as possible, to keep learning and keep getting better.

Whether you are working on a creative project, searching for a job, or preparing for your future, not everything will be in your control, ever. You need to learn how to control the things you can and let the rest go. And your preparation is always within your control. So ask yourself, what do you need to do now, so that you will be ready when you need to be? Trust me. Your future self will thank you.