\’\’
Can you provide it for me?
Unfortunately, I’ve agreed that in order for me to be something, I need external validation to be so.
Things aren’t real and true because I feel them. They’re true when something bigger than me validates them.
They’re true when some else agrees.
Like you.
Will ‘credentials’ make me confident being what I am?
It’s easier to feel confident about what you’re doing when you have them.
An MBA will give me permission to have confidence as an entrepreneur.
A formal art education will allow me to paint and create without guilt, and scorn.
A literary agent will make me feel like a real writer.
I know I don’t need to rely on outside authority to proclaim I’m good enough to do what I feel.
I just need to do it. And keep doing it.
Whether you or They like it or not.
I don’t need your ‘Go Ahead’.
Though I understand why I want it.
I need help sometimes. I need someone to tell me what the right thing to do is.
Except the only person who truly knows what I need to do is me. And I know that now.
I don’t need your permission.
It’s support and encouragement for those things most tender within me that I need.
I need space to be what I am. I need to feel that you respect my passion and my choices.
photo credit: Funkyah
Have you heard of the Personal MBA? This article was inspired in part by it’s Rule #1: You Don’t Need Permission. Thank you, Bill Boulton, for the reference.