Give Yourself the Permission You Need. Right now. And Then Get On With It.

First published on December 13, 2017

I was on a call with a client last week, and something came to me: "It seems like you're waiting for permission for something. What do you want permission for?" Things opened up.

We all wait for permission, but the need to wait is disappearing in so many places in the internet age. Seth Godin writes about how the gatekeepers are no more. No more do we need the permission of publishers (or anyone) to publish our book. We can just put it on Amazon. No more do we need the permission of TV executives (or anyone) to create our own daily, weekly, even hourly show. We can just post it on Youtube. We don't need the permission of a newspaper editor (or anyone) to publish the news as we see it, or to share opinion pieces and comments.

As Seth says, anyone with $100 and an internet connection can start a business now. You don't need a bank loan, or anything else. You could probably do it with less.

And yet we wait. We haven't got used to it yet. Maybe the next generation will, or the next. We wait for permission.

Sometimes we wait for approval, from ourselves or others. Perhaps a stamp of approval from a governing body, or a boss, or a partner, or a parent. Perhaps a feeling of permission: I'll start when I feel ready. That feeling is the permission I need.

Maybe it's a relic of an education system. Maybe it's a relic of the times when the internet didn't exist and you really did have to win the gatekeeper's approval to be a writer or an entrepreneur.

But it's time to switch it off. Because it's slowing us down everywhere, from creating the world we want to. How many great businesses haven't been started because people didn't get the permission they thought they needed? How many great songs are unpublished?

How many changes in organisations, which might have untold impact on hundreds or thousands of employees or thousands or millions of customers, haven't been made because someone didn't have 'permission'. Sometimes this is a real permission - employees hamstrung from creating change, heads of department forbidding it. But often it is just 'it isn't my job'. Or 'if it was a good idea someone else would have done it,' or 'Who am I to create change?' But what if everyone is thinking that. What if everyone is sitting there waiting for permission? Permission to go to the gym at lunchtime. Permission to go the extra mile with a customer. Permission to change the structure of the organisation. Permission to add definition to a role, or take it away.

These and many more are the things which will change the way we live, one person's world at a time.

I was able to give my client the permission she needed. I just told her I was giving her it. We can all do that to the people we know. Give them the permission they need. Give them it explicitly and implicitly, but give it.

I give you permission, now.

And we can do it for ourselves. Where are you waiting for permission?

Give yourself the permission you need. Right now. And then get on with it.