The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that we have to wait for something outside of us to give us permission to do something.

The type of permission I’m talking about here isn’t just in the form of someone explicitly saying “yes,” but the more subtle ways our mind tries to protect us from the fear we subconsciously hold towards the uncertainty of an outcome we don’t know the answer to yet. This can take form through waiting for the perfect time, questioning if others approve or not, whether something will provide visible instant results, and even waiting for our mind to stop going back and forth in hesitation of taking action.

Living life this way means that we’re always bound to another thing that can’t be found within us to receive gratification. But the thing is, external gratification is never guaranteed. It’s as unpredictable as the wind.

Growing up I wasn’t talented at sports or art, instead, I had the drive to bring home good grades to try and make up for it. I relied on getting praise from my parents to validate my hard work, and when it didn’t come I felt like a failure even though I had still done a great job. Crazy right? That’s what living for external validation looks like. When in reality, the feeling I was really searching for all that time and through all of those grand gestures was the simple permission to be myself. And that permission was something I was too afraid to find within because I didn’t know how to.

Freedom cannot be attained while we’re bound to things outside of our control. It can only be found from within. And that takes courage.

Words I live by to build up courage are to ‘follow your fears.’ Do things that scare you. Just like a muscle being worked out, they will become less and less scary the more you move past them until they are no longer a fear. You’ll learn how to trust yourself, and from that, learn the courage to think and act without feeling the need to ask for permission. Only forgiveness.

💘 Hanna