By Step 6 you have seen what is in you. The temptation now is to grit your teeth and remove it by effort. But readiness is not effort. A clean heart is not something you produce — it is something you receive, and the receiving requires the asking.
Step 6 says entirely ready to have God remove these defects. Not partially ready. Not ready for the ones that seem manageable. Entirely — including the defects you have been protecting because they seem necessary, or because you are not sure who you would be without them.
The anger that keeps you from being hurt again. The control that keeps you from being abandoned. The pride that keeps you from being dismissed. These feel like protections. They are also defects. Entirely ready means willing to let God touch those too.
Psalm 51:10 says create in me a clean heart — not repair, not improve, not adjust. Create. This is the work of God, not the work of self-will. Every attempt to remove character defects through personal discipline produces a version of the defect that goes underground and surfaces somewhere else.
You can manage anger into passivity and find it becomes resentment. You can manage lust into withdrawal and find it becomes isolation. Only God can remove the root.
Step 6 is the readiness. The asking is Step 7. But the readiness must be genuine before the asking can be honest. Spend time with Psalm 51:10. Let it be your prayer. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Not a better version of the old one. A new one.