Why You Still Don't Feel Ready (Even After All the Training)

The question that keeps gifted women stuck

How many courses do you need before you finally trust yourself? Five? Is it 10? 20? And at what point do you stop preparing to do the work and actually do the work? Because if you're listening to this, there's a good chance you've invested a lot in yourself already. You've done the training, you've read the books, you've stepped into and attended the workshops. You've probably spent years developing your skills, growing your awareness, and becoming the person that you are today. And yet a part of you is still wondering if you're ready. Ready to start the business, ready to work with clients, uh, ready to charge what you're worth for your services, and even ready to call yourself a practitioner, ready to step into leadership. What I've noticed over the years is that most people don't get stuck because they don't know enough. They get stuck because they don't trust the knowledge that they already have. And that's what I really wanted to talk about with you today, because readiness is one of the biggest illusions that I see. We think that one day we're gonna wake up and feel completely confident, completely prepared, completely certain, but that's rarely how it works. Readiness isn't necessarily a feeling. It's more of a decision. Welcome to Connecting to Spirit. I'm Lisa Brandis, and in this podcast we explore intuition,

Why readiness is a decision, not a feeling

spiritual growth, healing, and the deeper wisdom available to all of us. So today's conversation is about one that's been sitting on my heart for quite some time, because I've lived this myself and there's a good chance you might be living it too. So the trap of becoming a perpetual student. Now, before we go any further, let me be really clear, this isn't an episode about never learning again. I love learning. I have a high learning value and I've invested a lot in courses, certifications, mentors, programs throughout my entire career and many of them have transformed my life. And some of the biggest breakthroughs that I've experienced came because I was willing to learn from people who had already walked the path before me. So I wanna say that learning isn't the problem that I'm talking about here. The question is this: Are you learning because you're growing, or are you learning because you're avoiding taking the next step? Because there comes a point in every journey where the challenge is no longer about gaining more knowledge.

The perpetual student trap

The challenge actually becomes about-- it really is about becoming the person that the knowledge and the learning has been preparing you to be. I remember attending a hypnotherapy conference a few years ago and one of the presenters was teaching a framework around quantum healing. And as I listened, something became obvious to me very quickly. The information itself, it actually wasn't new to me. I'd read all the same books he'd read. I'd spent years studying healing, intuition, spirituality. I'd been on my personal self-development journey for a long time at that point. But what was different was the way he organized it. It was the framework, the structure, the language that he used to explain his process and his technique. And at one point he asked me to demonstrate the process that he'd just taught the class with another student. And we did so and had an incredible experience. And afterwards, he pulled me aside at the end of the class, and this was actually when we were on the way out. Now, this teacher was very spiritual himself. He worked with guidance in his own way, and he said something that I have never forgotten. He looked me in the eyes and he said, "I've got a message that's come through for you, Lisa." And he paused. And he made sure I was listening, and he said, "They want you to know that your apprenticeship is over, which means, Lisa, it's time for you to step up and start teaching and taking your work to the next level." And I remember feeling, like, quite shocked, not because his words surprised me, but because somewhere deep down I knew what he was saying was true. And the interesting thing was, at that point, I was already a Reiki master, i'd been teaching Reiki workshops for years then, But internally, I still saw myself as not good enough. Um, always, uh, always a student, never the master. And I always felt like

The message: your apprenticeship is over

there was always more to learn. I felt that there were people that were way better than me, knew so much more, and I still had this internal kind of doubt that I wasn't ready. And maybe this feels familiar to you because perhaps you, like me, have done the training, gained the certification. Perhaps you're already working, helping people, and maybe people are coming to you for support and insight and guidance, and yet there still might be this inner voice saying, "Not yet. Just one more course. I need to get that qualification before I feel like I've got the credibility, or just one more piece of proof so I feel confident and I know what I'm doing." But underneath all of it is usually the same question that I had, and it really is, "Can I trust myself?" The problem is, I've never met anyone who suddenly woke up one morning and thought, "That's it. I've done enough courses. I now feel completely ready." That doesn't happen, because confidence doesn't arrive first. Confidence, in my experience, is built through action. I didn't become confident and then start teaching. I taught and then became confident. And I didn't become confident and then start channeling. I channeled and then became confident. And I didn't become confident and then start leading others. I led and then started to feel confident in my leadership. So what I want you to know is that action came first, confidence follows. And this is where I see so many capable people get stuck. They keep gathering more and more information when what they really need is support and implementation. And again, that doesn't mean you stop learning. I still invest in training. I still work with mentors. I still attend programs. In fact, after that conference, I hired a business coach who helped me to step into a completely different level of leadership. So the difference was that I stopped using learning as a place to hide, and I started to use learning as a way to expand. So when one says, "I'm not enough yet," the other says, "I am enough, and I wanna become even better." That's a very different energy, okay? And looking back, what helped me to really grow wasn't getting one more certification. It was actually accountability. It was mentorship, and it was also having a clear pathway that challenged me to become more visible, trust myself and what comes through when I'm doing the work and in my element and in my joy, and then also stepping into, a greater path of leadership. Because knowledge without implementation changes nothing, and implementation without support can just feel overwhelming. The sweet spot I found is having both a pathway and accountability.

Confidence is built through action

So a few years ago, I was studying with an incredible teacher, a very humble and wise man, and at the end of the training I asked him a question. I said, "Is it..." 'Cause I still had doubts about pricing and charging from a spiritual perspective. And I said, "Is it okay to charge for spiritual services?" And he smiled and said, "Absolutely." He explained that as long as people know upfront what they're paying for and they choose to freely participate, then there's nothing wrong with being compensated well for doing meaningful work. And he then shared something else. He said to me something, and it is something that I've carried ever since. He said, "Always have a beginner's mind." And as a Reiki master, he knew I was a master and was teaching a lot of people at that point, and I love that because having a beginner's mind doesn't mean staying small. It doesn't mean remaining a beginner forever. It actually means remaining open, open to growth, open to learning, open to being challenged. And the best teachers that I've ever met don't think they know everything. They teach from what they do know and experience, but they remain curious. They share wisdom, but they're also open to hearing from their clients and the students. They remain humble because mastery isn't the end of learning. It's learning and leading at the same time, and perhaps that's the next evolution for you, not becoming a better student, but perhaps stepping into leadership, not because you know everything, but because you've learnt enough at this point in your life to help the person that's standing three steps behind you. So I wanna ask

Learning to expand versus learning to hide

you something today. What is the thing you've been telling yourself you'll do after that next course? Perhaps it's launching your spiritual business. Maybe it's working with clients. Maybe it's raising your prices. Perhaps it's finally calling yourself what you already are. So now ask yourself honestly, do you actually need more knowledge, or do you need to trust in yourself more? Because those are two very different things, and if you're waiting to feel completely ready before you move forward, I can save you years of frustration. That feeling may never come. Trust comes after that next step, not before it. So for years I thought- Apprenticeship ended when I knew enough. And what I've actually learnt is that the apprenticeship ends when we simply decide to trust ourselves. Not because we've mastered everything, but because we've mastered enough to just simply help the person standing one step behind us or a couple of steps behind us. So where in life are you still acting like the apprentice when you're actually being called to lead and to step up in a bigger way? And if you're called to develop this further, I share exactly how this works in my free training where I walk you through the pathway from developing your intuitive abilities to confidently using them in the real world. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Connecting to Spirit. Until next time, stay connected to your inner world. Trust yourself.

Is it okay to charge for spiritual work

Trust the path. And remember, sometimes the next step isn't learning more, it's becoming who you've already worked so hard to be.