Reading · Kelsey's Mindful Media Morsels

Are you waiting to go after the big thing you want just as soon as you finish one more course? Earn one more certificate? Rack up a little more experience so you can have a perfectly curated portfolio to present?

Let’s chat about that.

Because I can tell you with 100% confidence that the “ready” feeling you’re waiting for isn’t coming. It’s just going to keep moving a little farther ahead of you the closer you get to it.

As dietitians and/or women (covering just about 98% of this newsletter), we want to be 100% qualified for whatever we go after. We want to show up so freaking ready that no one can doubt that we belong there. But while you’re learning and earning and preparing (and spending THOUSANDS of dollars on courses for someone to tell us we’re ready), someone who isn’t even 60% qualified is out there getting what you want.

I got my first real writing job as a freelance writer at Livestrong back in 2021, and I felt like a complete fraud. Like at any moment someone was going to tap me on the shoulder and go, “Sorry — how did YOU get in here?”

I remember meeting my editors in person a year later and saying something like “Well, I have a long way to go before I’m a good writer,” and they shut me down real quick with the pep talk I desperately needed to hear. I write good articles. I turn my stuff in on time. I make their job easier.

Fast forward 5 years, and I’ve now written for 20 publications (turning into 21 this month—YAY!). I still feel like an imposter in the writing space, especially when I start with a new publication.

And it’s crazy how that works, really. I’ve been a dietitian for 10 years. I called myself a dietitian as soon as I passed my exam. I was never like “Oh, I guess I’m sort of a dietitian.”

But a writer? After hundreds of articles, I still feel like I’m about to be called out for faking it these past 5 years. I have no degree or professional training. I still wake up some days and am just in awe that I actually get paid to write.

Whether it’s writing or TV or pitching a podcast or showing up on social media or presenting at a conference or literally ANYTHING new, this insecure feeling will show up.

Feeling a bit unqualified and staying humble keeps you in the headspace of someone who’s always ready to learn, always a little hungry, and never just coasting by, expecting things to happen. You can feel like an imposter. But you still have to try. To me, that’s the key.

You do what you can do. Right now.

Figure out how to translate what you’ve already done into what you want to do next. Talk it through with someone else (in the comments below, perhaps?) because sometimes it’s hard to see how the dots connect in our own heads, but it makes total sense when we say it out loud.

What you most likely don’t need is another credential. Or a course. Or a $10,000 program.

Comment below or hit reply: What’s the thing you’ve been waiting to feel “ready” for? What’s actually stopping you?

Stop waiting until you're ready. Because (spoiler) you never will be.

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