🥂 Ready?
The one-liner that's guiding my 2026 - AND - the rest of my life 😳.
Prefer for me to chit chat with you directly✨🙋♀️✨? Just press play 🎧 ⤵
I must share with you a
DROP
👇
DEAD
👇
GORGEOUS
One liner … that fell into my ears at the beginning of this month 🎧.
It’s something I needed to hear …
And something you *likely* do too.
Especially if you’re …
🌱 entering into a new season of life …
📖 flipping to a whole new chapter (or even just the next page) …
🥂 pursuing some 2026 goal …
🎯 or gearing up to *finally* just do the darn thing …
Whatever the “thing” is!
Maybe it’s …
🤷♀️ having that conversation you’ve been itching to have …
🤷♀️ taking the action you’ve been talking about taking …
🤷♀️ or actually planning for the thing that needs planning for …
Whatever it is, we all got our “things”.
And with those things, comes the inevitable fears, concerns, doubts, ambiguities and conflicting feelings.
And WOW 😮💨.
Let me tell ya …
I’ve got some THINGS going on for me right now.
A lot of immediate “nexts” in my life.
And … top it off?
All these “nexts” …
THEY ARE BIG NEXTS 😳.
Biggies that are weighing on my heart …
Tangling up my brain …
And jolting my nervous system up, down, and round n’ round …
A 24/7 inner rollercoaster ☝️꩜👇꩜☝️꩜👇.
So …
As expected …
I’m deep in the throes of introspection:
⚖️ weighing the pros and cons …
🫣 shuffling around the “what-ifs” …
🫤 trying to make sense of the conflictions and contradictions
And of course …
All the while …
I’m asking the big scary question 👉 “Am I ready?” 👀
And, I’m going to take a guess …
As we say goodbye to 2025 and begin to greet the new year …
A time of renewal …
A time of “fresh starts” …
Starting over, starting again, starting for the first time, etc …
That → you too ← have been having conversations with yourself that revolve around the topic of “readiness”.
If so …
I invite you to consider what may be available for you 🤔 … just as I am considering what may be available to me … if we were to embody this one sentence for 2026 and beyond …
👇✨🥁✨👇✨🥁✨👇✨🥁✨👇
Ready is a decision, not a feeling.
I've reflected a lot on this statement over the month of December, and I've come to some seriously exquisite realizations about the word → ready.
Both for myself, and for the clients I serve.
Because, similar to my clients → I too ← am in the midst of BIG decisions, BIG actions, and BIG life plans …
More so than ever before‼
We’re talking the big guns … the biggest decisions I’ve ever made — AND LIKELY — will ever make 😯!
Ohhhhh the mind drama.
So - OF COURSE - I can make, and have been making, a million arguments as to why …
✅ - I’m ready!
❌ - But I'm also totally not ready?
✅ - And I FEEL ready!
❌ - But at the same time, I don’t feel anywhere as ready as I’d like to?
All arguments presenting as logical, valid, and rather convincing.
But …
Also …
Here’s the crux 😬 (… there’s always a crux).
I can CONTINUE to make arguments (all logical, all valid, and all rather convincing) … for months and months … for years and years and years … ➰⏳➰⏰➰📆➰⏰➰⏳➰ … as to why …
✅ - I’m ready
❌ - I’m not ready
✅ - I feel ready
❌ - I don’t feel ready
Leaving me — *leaving us* — in perpetual “assessing & preparing” mode.
🤔 - So when (in actuality) does readiness appear?
🤔 - When does “ready” truly arrive?
🤔 - When does “ready” formally begin?
🤔 - How do I know (for sure) that readiness is what I’m feeling?
🤔 - When (without any wobbly hesitation 🤨) do I get to finally shout from the mountain top … “I … ME … MAK ESTILL … I … AM … READY!” 📣?
To help me answer those questions …
I thought about times in my life where I truly experienced "feeling ready”.
Memories from my schooling years (high school & college 📚🥵) came to mind …
Where I would study consistently for weeks or months in advance.
And occasionally (although … nowhere near as often as I’d like) … I’d get to a point of grounded peace and relative certainty as I approached my exam day🧘♀️🎯.
I called this feeling …
This sensory experience …
BEING READY.
But then I started to consider … 🤔 …. that maybe in those rare, occasional moments where I “felt ready” throughout my life …
That maybe …
Just maybe 🤷♀️ …
Those moments were really just the symptomatic luxury that came with having:
☝️- made a decision
✌️- and taken consistent and deliberate action towards that decision
If so …
Then the decision came first.
Ex. → I decided I was going to get an A+ on a school exam → So action followed thereafter (I studied well in advance)
And if the decision comes first …
Then can't we then argue …
That the decision always comes first? That a decision is a requirement for readiness?
And if so …
Then isn’t “readiness” really just a decision at its core?
And isn’t “feeling ready” actually just the result of having committed to a decision, and being willing to see that decision through all the way to the end? Taking deliberate and intentional action towards that decision over a period of time?
I think so 🎯.
And I’m moving forward believing so 🎯.
Because that’s where I see action and results happening the most for both myself and for the clients I serve.
A recent example 👇 …
My client said to me the other day …
“Mak, I feel like I’m gonna puke every time I get on a call with you.”
I responded …
“Wow. Do you plan on writing that in a Google review?”
She laughed, stating …
“I’ve determined that it’s my body telling me that it’s afraid.”
“Afraid of me?”, I responded.
“Afraid of the success I’m going to experience from working with you. I’ve realized I’m afraid to finally experience my own success. And by starting to work with you, I now know my success is guaranteed. And I’m afraid.”, she admitted.
“Correct”, I said, “and I’m so happy you’re here”.
“Me too”, she said, “I’m so happy I got on the call”.
😮💨 💕😮💨 💕😮💨 💕😮💨 💕😮💨
This client didn’t wait till she “felt ready” 👉 Quite the opposite!
She almost ran to the bathroom to puke 3 minutes before our call.
But she showed up for her coaching session because she DECIDED she was ready to experience new success in her life …
And she DECIDED that waiting around to “feel ready” was no longer a requirement for her to move into action …
And furthermore …
All that prior “waiting around to feel ready” shit … that was doing absolutely nothing worthwhile for her or her goals.
And now?
She practices stepping into this new belief every time she shows up for a coaching call.
HOW.
FREAKING.
COOL.
👏⭐️👏⭐️👏⭐️👏⭐️👏
I’m inspired. I hope you are too.
And this recent client example poses some great questions for us all to consider!
🤔 - Are you waiting around to feel ready?
🤔 - Doesn’t the waiting (to feel ready) just get you more … waiting?
🤔 - Are you making “feeling ready” a requirement before taking action towards your desired life?
🤔 - What benefits have you ACTUALLY received from waiting to feel ready?
🤔 - Are those benefits significantly better than if you would have just decided that readiness was a decision, and not a feeling?
🤔 - What could be available for you today (?) … tomorrow (?) … next week (?) … or in a few months (?) … if today you decided to be ready?
If you decide → right here, right now ← that “feeling ready” is no longer a requirement for you to move into action …
To move towards your desired outcomes …
To move towards the experiences you’ve been seeking …
Then I invite you to press that big beautiful yellow button below (💛👇📲) so we can finally hop on a call together, chit-chat, connect and explore what teaming up for some private 1:1 coaching can achieve for you in 2026 and beyond!
What an exciting time to decide to be ready.
Happy holidays to you and your loved ones 🎄💕🥂🍽️ 🕯️📆.
Remember 👉 Together, we are on our way to a life of ✨lesser✨ & ✨lighter✨ anxiety!
The idea that readiness follows commitment instead of preceding it cuts through a lot of mental looping. Waiting for certainty often keeps people parked in analysis while anxiety keeps negotiating for more time. Deciding first shifts the whole sequence from internal debate to forward motion.
The client example shows how fear and action can coexist without one needing to cancel the other. Feeling nauseous and still showing up is a familiar experience for many people standing at the edge of change. Action seems to create its own stability once the decision is made.
This reframes readiness as something practiced rather than discovered. That feels especially relevant at the start of a new year when so many plans stall because the internal green light never appears.