How has your week been? With all that is going on in the world, I hope you and your loved ones are well and safe, and that you are finding ways to see beauty in the every day beyond all the difficult news that surrounds us daily.
Over here, this past week I delivered a couple of in-person workshops, and noticed something emerging as a surprisingly common theme with many of the participants. It was the realisation that before you can be a Freedom Seeker, you have to give up the old story of being a Permission Seeker.
A disproportionate number of the participants were the youngest in their family, and realised they still look to their siblings for permission, validation and advice before they take action. For those who were the oldest in their family or an only child, there was a pattern of looking to parents for that same permission, validation and advice. It’s completely understandable, and we all do it in one way or another. However, the potential issues with this are manifold:
- If you seek this permission, validation or advice from multiple sources, the conflicting advice you get back can be so overwhelming that you get stuck and don’t actually do anything
- They may not give you the permission, validation or advice you are looking for, and that can drive a wedge between you
- When something goes wrong, there is a natural tendency to blame those other people
- When you make a decision based on the permission, validation or advice you sought out, and later reflect that it was probably the wrong decision, regret weighs even heavier
Fortunately there is a simple solution – simply to start giving yourself the permission you are looking for, to do whatever it is you are wanting to do, accepting your own validation as enough, and trusting that you know the answer already. Of course this is easier said than done, if it requires breaking year-old patterns, but you can begin today simply by making a list of what you really want to start doing or stop doing, and then granting yourself the permission to do that.
To help you, below you can find a printable permission slip (click to download a high res version) which you can download, fill in and keep somewhere you will see it regularly. I encourage you to do this today, and then get cracking with your dreams!
Have a great week
Beth
