Stop Waiting For Permission

No one is coming to give you permission.

Years in our education system teach us to conform.

We learn to show up on time, to be quiet, to obey and when to eat our lunch.

This is great for training factory workers, but not so great for those looking to get on in the world in their own way.

We’ve been conditioned to wait for permission. We don’t attempt things because we feel like we need credentials.

There’s no knock on the door coming to hand you a certificate and declare you a painter, an entrepreneur or a photographer.

The poet, Henry Wadsworth, wrote that, “We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.”

No one can read your mind. No one can see the work you haven’t created. There is a gap between feeling capable and beginning.

We long for a nod of approval, a little nudge or acknowledgement that we might be on to something. We know we have good taste; we think we could accomplish some physical feat, but we haven’t actually started.

This is the sticking point; this is the waiting for permission. That is your signal to push on.

No one can give you a hand, admire your art or buy your book until you’ve started.

Why Do We Do This

We often suffer from imposter syndrome.

We tend to overestimate others and underestimate ourselves. We get it in our heads that those already doing what we’re striving to accomplish are somehow different.

We think they have something we’re missing. Like someone ordained them at some point and we’re a fraud on the outside looking in.

The second thing working against us is often our environments.

Epictetus warned his students to, “Above all, keep a close watch on this - that you are never so tied to your former acquaintances and friends that you are pulled down to their level. If you don’t, you’ll be ruined…you must choose whether to be loved these friends and remain the same person, or try to become a better person at the cost of these friends…if you try to have it both ways you will neither make progress nor keep what you have.”

There will always be someone willing to make you feel better about quitting the pursuit of your higher self. When we give up cheap pleasures and instant gratification for something more, it can make those who’ve known us uncomfortable.

Your life to this point is the result of the actions you’ve deemed acceptable for yourself. When we change what we’re willing to accept, it will likely change who we surround ourselves with.

Those similar to the version of yourself you’re trying to transcend will try to convince you that they’ve actually got it figured out. That the way you’ve been living is fun. Is what to strive for.

Most people are going through the motions. Working average jobs to maintain average lives and feeling good about it because it’s what everyone else is doing.

To go for more is going to mean leaving people behind.  

Imagine Your Future Self

Imagine yourself in the future having accomplished whatever feat it is you’ve been thinking about.

Now imagine being asked about how you did it. How did you start? What did you have to change? What was holding you back before you began?

You’d probably talk about those first things you had to do. You started waking up earlier to have a free hour to work on your novel. You stopped drinking so you could run every day and slowly start losing weight.

You’d probably talk about the life you were living – maybe it was a fine life- but it wasn’t what you knew you really wanted to be doing. It was a worthy path, it took work to get there, but it wasn’t the one you wanted to stay on.

You can play this all the way out, but it’s enough to stop there.

This is an experiment, but it’s also a way of opening your eyes. It’s proof that you already know what you need to do. Those things you just imagined are based in reality. They’re the first steps.

Now you know where to start. Permission isn’t coming.

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