The Importance of Preparation

Dec 15, 2009 by mandeewidrick

If I could share one random piece of wisdom with you that I’ve learned by being an entrepreneur, I would urge you to always prepare to the best of your abilities. When I first decided to write this post, I asked myself, What would be a worthy example of preparation that I could use as guidance for my readers? I’ve chosen to share with you a brief story of my experience with horses as a young teenager, or rather, the lack thereof. (Sorry if my writings always end up leaning towards something or other equine…deal with it. )

At 13 years old, I was a horse-crazed kid who thought I could do anything. Our first horse, a bay mare named Gracie, was as much of a spitfire as I. In a nutshell, Mandee + Gracie = Disaster. I specifically recall the day I chose to ride her without professional supervision. I hadn’t learned enough about riding yet and I didn’t really know what I was doing. But, of course, THAT couldn’t stop me! I saddled her up that morning, jumped on, and proceeded to walk forward. What I didn’t realize was that the saddle was not girthed properly, and it wasn’t long before it proceeded to tip to the left. Before I knew what was happening – BUCK! BUCK! BUCK! WHOOSH! Ker-thunk. (The whoosh and ker-thunk part was me flying through the air then hitting the ground.)

The horse bucked me off that day because I hadn’t taken the time to properly prepare and learn in advance. If I’d learned how to saddle up correctly I may have avoided a painful landing on my right wrist.

Other tasks such as writing a research paper, public speaking, job interviews, event planning or business meetings are all things that also require careful thought and effort ahead of time. I’ve tried doing all of those things without preparation and it just doesn’t go off too well. Maybe you’ve even heard me say before, “Oh it’s fine, I’ll just wing it.” Ha. That can work once in a while, but most times it’s just me not wanting the extra work.

I looked up the definition of “wing it” on Google, just out of curiosity. This is what I found:

To wing it is an idiom that means to improvise, to do something without proper
preparation or time to research. People often talk about winging it when they
have to do something difficult that they didn’t have time to prepare — like a
make speech or give a presentation. They might say something like "Sorry if I
seem a bit disorganized, I’m totally winging it." You tell people that you’re
winging it, that you’re improvising, so that they won’t expect too much from
you, or so that they will be more forgiving if you make a mistake.

(Source: http://www.betteratenglish.com/english-idioms-to-wing-it-to-improvise/)

I think that winging it is okay on occasion if you’re truly stuck in a situation where it’s absolutely necessary. Everyone has to be able to do that when needed. However, if you constantly have to improvise then you will never do your very best! That’s what I’ve found in my own personal endeavors. When you prepare, you are more likely to handle yourself more professionally and achieve higher success.

That’s not to say that you can’t do something that you’ve never tried before. There’s a first time for everything. Give it a whirl, see what happens, and then do everything in your power to learn more about the task at hand. It’s a great way to learn new things. :)