Man, sometimes you just get stuck, right? I was in one of those spots a while back. My day job was okay, paid the bills, kept a roof over my head. But that was about it. No real fire, you know? Just cruising. And I had this idea, this thing I really wanted to build, rattling around in my head for years. It was always there, a little whisper, but I always pushed it aside. “Not the right time,” I’d tell myself. Always some excuse – too busy, not enough money, not skilled enough, too risky. It was a never-ending loop of “later.”
But then something shifted. Maybe it was hitting a certain age, or just finally getting fed up with the same old grind, seeing the years just tick by. Whatever it was, that little whisper got louder. It turned into a shout. This time, though, instead of batting it away, I leaned in. I wanted to figure out if this “right moment” thing was real, or just another excuse I was serving myself. It was like I needed to pull out that Queen of Swords card from my deck, mentally, and just get brutally honest with myself.
I started by grabbing a plain old notebook and a pen. None of this fancy app stuff, just paper. I sat down and just started writing. I didn’t hold back. Every single fear, every doubt, every “what if it fails miserably” thought – I dumped it all onto the page. It wasn’t pretty. It was a mess of anxieties and worst-case scenarios. I filled up a few pages with just the bad stuff, the reasons not to do it.
Then came the hard part. For each one of those fears, I started to write a logical counter. I wasn’t allowed to use feelings. No “I’m scared of failing” and then just leaving it at that. It had to be, “What is the actual worst-case outcome if I fail? Can I recover? What steps can I put in place to prevent that specific failure?” I went through them, one by one. If I feared running out of money, I wrote down, “What’s my absolute minimum living cost? How many months can I survive on savings if I earn nothing? What’s my backup plan for income?” I was trying to slice through the emotional fog with cold, hard facts.
I also decided to talk to a couple of friends. Not the ones who always cheer you on, no matter what. I picked the ones who are brutally honest, the practical, no-nonsense types. I laid it all out. “Am I crazy?” I asked them straight up. They didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear. They asked me tough questions I hadn’t even thought of. “What’s your exit strategy if it doesn’t work?” “Have you actually validated this idea with anyone else?” Their skepticism wasn’t discouraging; it was actually really helpful. It forced me to think even deeper, to poke holes in my own logic before the world did.
I looked at my finances with a magnifying glass. Every penny. I created a bare-bones budget. Cut out all the fluff. I needed to know, truly know, what my runway was. How long could I realistically keep this going without any income from the project? It was a sobering exercise, but it gave me a concrete number, a time limit, which surprisingly, wasn’t as terrifying as the vague fear of “no money.”
Then I tackled my schedule. Where was all my time going? I mapped out a typical week. My job took a big chunk, obviously, but there were hours, scattered here and there, that were just… wasted. Scrolling, watching TV, just idling. I started to block out specific, non-negotiable hours for this project, just like a doctor’s appointment. They were sacred. No excuses. I started treating it like a job, even though it wasn’t paying me a dime yet.
It wasn’t like a light bulb suddenly switched on. It was more gradual, like peeling layers off an onion. With each fear I countered, each fact I gathered, each hour I dedicated, the path started to get clearer. The “not the right time” excuse began to unravel, revealing its true nature: “I’m scared.” And that was a much more manageable thing to deal with than some nebulous “timing” issue.
One quiet Tuesday morning, after months of this internal deep dive, it just clicked. Not with a bang, not with excitement or wild enthusiasm, but with a deep, quiet certainty. It wasn’t an emotional decision. It was a logical one. “Yeah,” I thought, “this is it. Now’s the time.” The clarity was undeniable. It wasn’t about feelings pushing me, it was about the data I had collected and analyzed, making the path visible.
I didn’t make a big announcement. I just started making moves. First, I responsibly tidied up everything at my old job. Finished all my lingering tasks, documented everything, helped transition my responsibilities to others. I wanted to leave cleanly, without burning bridges. Then, I committed fully to my new schedule. Those blocked-out hours for my project? They became my new workday.
Did I feel resistance? Absolutely. There were moments of colossal doubt, days I wanted to throw in the towel. But what kept me going was that initial, clear-headed decision. I’d go back to my notebook, look at those facts, those countered fears. “I did the work,” I’d tell myself. “I figured out the timing. I chose this.” It wasn’t about raw passion carrying me through the hard times; it was about conviction in my analysis, conviction in the deliberate timing I had assessed.
And looking back now, it truly was the right moment. If I’d waited longer, I might have lost the spark, or the window of opportunity might have closed. If I’d jumped in too soon, without all that preparation and honest self-assessment, I probably wouldn’t have been ready for the hurdles. It was about seeing clearly, cutting through all the noise, and then acting decisively when that clarity finally arrived. Not when emotions demanded it, but when logic gave the green light.
