Being prepared vs over-prepared

Ever notice that you do a lot more prep than other people? 

Before a meeting, you spend a lot of time: 

• reminding yourself of ALL relevant background info
• studying any related know-how and market data
• anticipating ALL possible questions…

When other people just seem to wing-it. If they don’t know the answer, they just say something that sounds vaguely right with an air of supreme confidence. 

Now look, you may or may not want to become them ☺, BUT…

If you want to save yourself time, it’s worth questioning why you’re working harder than them at the same task. Especially if the outcome is the same.  

You’re a professional, so obviously you’ll do a certain level of prep for meetings, calls etc. But when do you move from being prepared to being over-prepared?

Here’s my opinion…. it’s over-preparation when the main reason you’re doing it is to keep yourself safe, rather than because there’s a legitimate business need. 

It comes from thoughts like:

• I’m not as smart as ‘them’, so I need to prepare more
• My only value is in working hard and being super-prepared
• I should know more … so have to prepare to compensate

Basically, you’re preparing to avoid the embarrassment of being ‘found out’. 

Your brain is telling you that you’re not ‘good enough’- and offering a great solution to avoid everyone seeing the truth!  Meaning you’re probably also under-representing your time (another way to keep the deep-dark ‘truth’ hidden…).

If this is you, that’s good to know! 

Now we can start solving the real problem. 

The solution is NOT learning how to ‘act confidently’ like those other people. 

If it was that easy, you would have done it already. Go take a drama class. 

The solution is to change the thoughts that create FEAR.  

Take control of your fear, and the rest will fall into place.