“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
— Mark Twain

In 2014, the housing market in Colorado was completely insane.

Houses would hit the market in the morning and by the end of the day the seller would have ten offers, all above asking. People were waiving inspections and making decisions that should take weeks in a matter of hours.

My ex-husband and I were right in the middle of it.

It was 9:00 PM the night before Mother’s Day, and I had been obsessively refreshing Zillow for weeks, hourly, sometimes more. We had already made an offer on a house and lost it, and every loss made the urgency worse. When this new listing popped up, it honestly felt too good to be true. I called our realtor at 9:15 PM and told him we wanted to see it first thing in the morning.

The next day, we showed up in a snowstorm. We were one of three couples looking at the house, which already felt like a miracle given how competitive everything had been. We walked through quickly, room by room, oohing and aahing like people who wanted something very badly but were trying not to show it, hoping to throw the other couples off.

We spent about thirty minutes in that house. Only thirty minutes!

We decided to go to breakfast and talk it over, thinking we had at least a little time to be rational adults about a seven-hundred-thousand-dollar decision. Before breakfast was even over, our realtor called to tell us that both other couples had already submitted offers. Both were above asking.

At that point, it was not a thoughtful, measured discussion anymore. We were under fire. This was not the moment for spreadsheets or deep reflection. We looked at each other and said, “Well, should we do it?” We wrote the offer. We went over asking. We included a heartfelt letter about why we loved the house and why we could see ourselves there. And then we waited.

A massive life decision, made after seeing a property for half an hour.

Well, we got the house, over asking, with the letter and everything that went with it. On paper, it looked like a win. And in many ways, it was. But here is the part that matters more now, looking back on it with a little distance.

We did not keep our powder dry. We reacted to pressure. We reacted to competition. We reacted to the fear of missing out in a market that made people feel like hesitation was a liability. We made a seven-hundred-thousand-dollar decision quickly because slowing down did not feel like an option, not because it was the best moment to act, but because everyone else was firing and we did not want to be left standing there with nothing.

That experience stuck with me because it mirrors something I see over and over again in life.

We move fast when the urgency is loud and external, when there is a clock ticking or other people circling, and we convince ourselves that speed equals confidence. At the same time, we overthink decisions that are far less risky. We stall on ideas that are reversible, adjustable, and relatively safe to try, and we call that caution instead of what it often is, which is fear.

We rush the wrong things and stall on the right ones, and then we wonder why everything feels harder than it needs to be.

That is why something a friend said the other day stuck with me, even though I did not know what it meant at the time. We were talking about something happening at his work and how people often jump immediately because of pressure or FOMO, without thinking it through. He said, “Sometimes you just have to keep your powder dry.”

At first, I thought he meant slow down. So, I Googled it.

What it actually means is more specific than that. To keep your powder dry means staying calm and ready for a possible problem in the future. It is about not wasting your energy too early and not reacting just because everyone else is reacting. It is about judgment, not hesitation.

The phrase comes from a time when gunpowder had to stay dry to be useful. Holding your powder was not about being cautious or hesitant. It was about judgment. It meant knowing when not to fire and knowing when waiting too long would cost you the opportunity altogether.

Keeping your powder dry does not mean never acting. It means knowing when pressure is distorting your decision-making and when waiting would actually cost you the opportunity. It means not firing just because the situation feels urgent and not sitting on something that needs movement simply because you are afraid of choosing wrong.

Not every yes needs to be automatic just because it feels rushed, exciting, or because everyone else seems to be moving faster. At the same time, there are moments where we do the opposite and wait far too long. We overthink small, reversible decisions, talk ourselves in circles, and lose momentum that would have come back to us if we had just moved.

I learned this the hard way. There are moments in my life where I should have paused longer, and moments where waiting only made me doubt myself for no real reason. The difference was never how big the decision was. It was whether fear was driving it, either by rushing me forward or keeping me stuck.

When you are honest, you can usually tell the difference. Overthinking feels heavy and circular. Rushing feels frantic and reactive. The right moment feels alert, focused, and uncomfortable in a way that sharpens you instead of dulling you.

That is what it means to keep your powder dry. Not hiding but also not charging blindly. Staying clear-headed long enough to know when it is actually time to move.

Remember, YOU GOT THIS!

ONE ON ONE COACHING – Good Things Are Gonna Come  

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