Seeking Permission Not Only Kills Your Dreams.
4 min read
Each week I will be posting an article, either written by me, or other writers that I have found contribute to my own Mental Health.
I found this article and thought I would share with you because we all have at times sought permission from others in our lives to carry forward no only with our dreams, but also with other things in our lives.
If we are constantly seeking permission, then we are also constantly placing undue stress on ourselves mentally and emotionally. This article will give you some insights into how to stop seeking permission from others.
Too often when we seek permission from others, we never get to give ourselves permission, the permission we need the most.
When you have a goal, the natural tendency is to unconsciously seek permission. You do it without realizing it. I’ve done it too.
While waiting for permission, you hold yourself back. The time and effort required to get the permission you think you need stops you from putting that energy into your work: the differentiator. There are two forms of quietly seeking permission.
The Desire for Advice
After writing on the internet for six years, people regularly ask me for advice. Sometimes it’s advice on writing and other times it’s on how to achieve a goal or change one’s mindset.
The ‘ask’ starts out as innocent. Before I know it, I’m swapping advice back and forth on an email and the person is asking me to show them the exact route to their goal. It would be nice if I could do this for them. It would be great if I had all the answers. All that blogging has taught me is that I know nothing.
Strangely, this thought has helped me drop the need to seek permission.
Asking for advice is fine or reading advice can be helpful; what’s unhelpful is to endlessly seek advice and not exert your effort into learning some of the answers yourself.
You’ll learn more through experience than asking for advice. Cliche advice like “Manage your mindset” seems obvious until your loved one is in the hospital and you stop work and can’t find it inside of yourself to start again. On that day, manage your mindset will be real. You’ll have to find a way and you will. Somehow.
I know you want advice; just don’t let it be what you’re waiting for your entire life. Advice is just someone else’s experience. Your experience could be totally different. And that’s what makes life fun.
Obsessing Over Mentors
Success porn all over the internet that doesn’t contain nudity tells you to find a mentor. Having Keanu Reeves as your mentor seems like it would change everything. Surely some of his humbleness would rub off on you?
What is strange about a good mentor is that they don’t give you answers. Often, all they give you is just more questions to ask yourself.
Mentors rarely validate your goals because they’re busy with their own disappointments. When a mentor that has some level of perceived results aims to coach you, what is secretly happening in the background is they’re wanting more.
With results comes the desire for even bigger results.
The holy grail of mentorship is to coach yourself.
This is how you coach yourself:
- Put yourself in uncomfortable situations.
- Set a goal and stick to it for a year (my preferred length is five years).
- Show up every single day, even if you don’t feel like it.
- Embrace having no idea what you’re doing.
- Manage your mindset through present-moment awareness and observing your self-talk.
- Use your curiosity to your advantage by exploring it. Go down the rabbit hole.
Finding the right mentor comes down to chance. It could take years and even then they may only give you more unanswered questions. Fast-track away from the need to have a mentor and coach yourself. Lightly supplement with mentors when and if you want to later on.
If You Want Your Life to Change, You Can Do It Yourself
In 2014 I wanted my life to change. I waited years for a miracle to come along or a chance to work in my favour. Nothing happened.
I made a small decision to get on a plane and fly to Sydney. My crippling fear of flying had held me back for years. Taking that flight was a small decision to do something for me.
The flight was a success and I landed in Sydney. The next day I attended a seminar and opened my eyes to the thought that my psychology could have been working against me. Upon arriving back in Melbourne, I made a few more changes, such as starting a social media account, acting as a leader, reading more, becoming vegetarian, and working on my mindset. None of these choices were huge.
The key was to frame each decision as an experiment which made the habit seem temporary. Those temporary habits became life-long changes.
If I analyze what happened during that period of my life, it was really nothing more than making one small change. I wanted my life to change so I no longer asked for permission and made the first change. The first change led to all the other changes that followed.
You can have no mentor and no advice to follow and start the change process yourself.
The right time
There is never the right time, either. When these changes were happening in my life, there was relationship issues, mental illness, problems at work, family issues — the timing was terrible.
But there is never the right time to change. It is never a good time to start working on your dream, so you may as well start right now.
If you don’t make the change you seek, well, nothing changes.
The Solution
Taking the proactive approach is how you overcome the need to seek permission through mentors and gaining endless amounts of advice. The proactive approach looks like this:
- Intentionally network
- Ask a lot more questions
- Be curious
- Ask for the opportunity regardless of whether the timing is right
- Back yourself no matter what happens
Waiting for permission only creates a barrier to achieving your goal. Start all by yourself and let experience guide you.