Being prepared

Preparation plays a crucial role in developing confidence.

Whatever preparation we choose to have, it engages us with the upcoming activity, gives us an idea of what we intend to do, and makes us aware of some of the details we need to pay attention to.

As always, there is a range of ways to organize one’s preparation.

The simplest preparation I’ve often seen people decide on is to say that they have no expectations and that they’ll just do whatever is necessary.

The preparation that often feels the most strenuous is the one where people seek to prevent any possible problem and start to imagine a solution for every upcoming risk they can think of.

There is no right and wrong, only a choice of how one chooses to step into the process of the activity. That choice will depend on one’s preferences. If someone wants to avoid surprises, they’ll look for ways to avoid them. If someone has no idea of how to prepare themselves for the upcoming activity, they’ll avoid the effort of preparing themselves.

That is how practice steps in.

Preparing oneself for something one has never done will differ from the preparation accessible after having done an activity several times.

Practice changes our preparation. And preparation changes our practice. It’s based on our ability to learn from the repetition of our actions and results from it.

However, there is no learning without preparation.