The Day You Stop Asking Permission

There is a strange thing that happens when you become an adult.

Nobody actually tells you that you are allowed to become one.

When we are children, permission makes sense.

Can I go outside?

Can I stay up late?

Can I have another cookie?

Can I ride my bike down the street?

Can I paint my bedroom purple?

Can I please, for the love of God, stop doing algebra now?

There is always somebody above us holding the invisible stamp of approval.

A parent.

A teacher.

A coach.

A boss.

Somebody gets to say yes.

And then one day, somewhere along the way, that system quietly disappears.

Except a lot of us never notice.

We grow up, but we keep waiting for someone to tell us:

Yes, you are talented enough.

Yes, you are experienced enough.

Yes, you are qualified enough.

Yes, you are allowed to start over.

Yes, you are allowed to make this.

Yes, you are allowed to call yourself a writer.

Yes, you are allowed to build the business.

Yes, you are allowed to change your mind.

Yes, you are allowed to want more.

We keep looking over our shoulder for an authority figure who is no longer there.

And sometimes years go by that way.

I think one of the most important moments in a person’s life is the day they realize nobody is coming with permission.

That can feel terrifying at first.

Because permission is comfortable.

Permission means somebody else has already decided the thing is acceptable.

It means someone else has taken a little piece of the risk.

If the teacher says you are ready, then maybe you are ready.

If the boss promotes you, then maybe you are capable.

If the industry recognizes you, then maybe you are legitimate.

If enough people applaud, maybe you finally have proof that what you wanted to do was worth doing.

But what happens when nobody claps first?

What happens when the thing you want to create does not come with an invitation?

What happens when the door you have been waiting to walk through does not actually have anybody standing on the other side to open it?

At some point, you have to touch the handle yourself.

I have been thinking a lot about permission lately because creativity is full of invisible gatekeepers.

Some of them are real.

There are publishers.

Record labels.

Casting directors.

Editors.

Executives.

Algorithms.

Customers.

Audiences.

People whose yes or no can absolutely affect what happens next.

But there are also gatekeepers we invent in our own minds.

Those are often worse.

Who am I to write this?

Who am I to make music?

Who am I to start a business?

Who am I to call myself an artist?

Who am I to teach anybody anything?

Who am I to believe this idea could actually become something?

That question, “Who am I?” sounds humble.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes it is simply fear wearing glasses.

Because there is another question we rarely ask with the same intensity:

Who are you not to?

If you have something worth saying, who decided you need a committee to certify your voice?

If you have an idea that keeps returning to you, why does someone else have to understand it before you are allowed to build it?

If you love something enough to learn it, practice it, fail at it, study it, improve it, and keep showing up, when exactly are you supposed to become “official”?

I have never seen a ceremony for that.

Nobody hands you a certificate that says:

Congratulations. You may now take yourself seriously.

It would be convenient if they did.

I think some people spend half their lives waiting for credentials that only action can give them.

They want confidence before they begin.

But confidence is usually one of the things you get because you began.

They want certainty before they move.

Certainty is rare.

They want proof that they will succeed.

Life has never offered that contract.

What it does offer is possibility.

And possibility is a very different thing.

Possibility says:

You might fail.

You might embarrass yourself.

You might change direction three times.

You might discover you were wrong.

You might discover you were more capable than you ever imagined.

You might build something nobody around you understands yet.

You might become the person you were waiting for.

That is the bargain.

I think we are taught to fear failure so thoroughly that sometimes we forget to fear regret.

Failure is visible.

Regret is quieter.

Failure gives you a story.

Regret just keeps asking the same question years later.

What if I had tried?

That question can haunt a person.

I would much rather have a drawer full of things that did not work than a head full of things I was too afraid to begin.

There is freedom in realizing that.

Not recklessness.

Not arrogance.

Not the belief that every idea we have is brilliant simply because it came from us.

We still need wisdom.

We still need feedback.

We still need to learn.

We still need people who will tell us when something is not working.

But advice and permission are not the same thing.

That distinction matters.

You can listen to people without handing them ownership of your life.

You can respect expertise without surrendering your instincts.

You can take criticism without interpreting it as a command to disappear.

You can change your mind because you learned something, not because somebody made you feel foolish for trying.

There is a maturity in that.

The older I get, the less impressed I am by certainty and the more impressed I am by people willing to begin before they feel ready.

Because almost nobody feels ready.

I certainly haven’t.

There are things in my life now that, years ago, I would have waited for someone else to authorize.

I would have wanted reassurance.

A roadmap.

Some evidence that I had the right to claim the space.

But sometimes life simply gets too short for that.

I have a great example of what I'm talking about here.

My husband, Ricky Dean.

If you read the chapter, "Only Believe", you will recall me telling you that he was a state trooper. That's true - - but just telling you that doesn't tell you how much more surrounds those years.

Ricky dropped out of high school the beginning of his Senior year. He grew up in Columbus, OH, and it was the mid-70's when integration was still very much a happening thing. That made for a not-so-fun high school experience with all of the racial tension that was happening all around him. He found himself learning more about defending himself than Arithmetic, Science or History.

And so, with his dad's permission, he dropped out and joined the Navy at 17 years old. After serving his 4 years in the military, he went back home to Ohio and through a series of events, decided he wanted to become a prestigious Ohio State Trooper. His steps were clearly ordered because just the right people were put in his path to get him "in the door" - - including an amazing mentor, who just so happened to be in charge of recruiting, at the time.

But, in order to even BEGIN the 6+ month academy, then 3 more months of coaching/training, he first had to go through an extensive background check and tests, prepare physically by running 10 miles a day and doing a billion push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, jump rope, calisthenics, and anything else he was advised to do, to prepare for the academy - - every. single. day.

AND, he needed to get his GED - - which, of course, required months of disciplined studying... every subject, and then, taking the test and passing.

Needless to say, he accomplished every bit of that and became a commissioned Ohio State Highway Patrolman. His parents, especially his dad, were so proud of him! His dad was a company-man. He worked for the same company for over 40 years. However, his dad is also who taught Ricky how to play banjo and guitar at a very young age. Ricky started playing banjo at age 8 and was on his first album with a gospel family band at age 9. A prodigy, for sure! He started learning guitar at age 11 or 12. Music was in their blood! His dad loved playing banjo and he loved playing with Ricky - - but his dad would NEVER have quit his job to pursue music. 

Not. Ever.

And the job he had didn't require NEARLY the prerequisites to GET the job that Ricky went through to become a trooper. 

Ricky has said many times over the years that being an Ohio State Trooper was by far his favorite job he ever had. He was very good at it and has accommodation letters and all kinds of things from those few years that prove that plenty of other people had a high opinion of him and his skills, as well. He was well on his way to  HQ. He was told that multiple times. He had a career ahead of him with that organization that many only dream of having. 

But Ricky had other dreams, as well. 

Music dreams.

Dreams that didn't make sense to his dad, the company-man who knew that the music business was NOT unicorns and rainbows - - and definitely not one with a pot of gold at the end of it!

His mentor in the patrol didn't even accept his resignation when he first turned it in. Again, he, too, was a musician and LOVED to play music with Ricky - - on the side.

But only...on the side. He NEVER would have quit his career in the patrol to pursue music.

Everyone continued to try and talk Ricky out of quitting that job. They all agreed that he was an incredible musician, but didn't want him to "throw his life away" by quitting this career job he worked so hard to get to run towards a business that was extremely unpredictable with absolutely no promises at all. 

But Ricky didn't listen to everyone around him. Even at that young age, he gave himself permission to follow his heart. He had worked just as hard at becoming a master musician.

And you know where it led?

It led to playing the famous Grand Ole Opry more times than he can remember. It led to playing with Bob Dylan, Paul Simon (which actually happened years before this), Wayne Newton, Santana, Shania Twain, Paul Overstreet, John Michael Montgomery, and so many more that I would run out of room telling you all of them. 

And today - - he is completely unable to play because Multiple Sclerosis has completely robbed him of that first love.

But what if he had listened to everyone way back then and never quit the patrol? 

He would have always wondered, "What if...?"

But now, he never has to wonder. He KNOWS he made the right decision.

Not only did he succeed at fulfilling his dreams of music, but IF he had listened to everyone and WAITED until after the great career in law enforcement, he may have NEVER been able to fulfill his music dreams - - because he had no idea that MS was in his future. But because he didn't wait for permission from anyone to follow his heart, he now has thousands of memories from hundreds of stages and hundreds of thousands of cheers that echo through his reminiscent thoughts today... because he did EXACTLY what I'm inspiring you to do.

At some point, you become less interested in whether everybody understands what you are building, or becoming, and more interested in whether you understand why you are building it or becoming it.

That is a very different way to live.

It is quieter.

Stronger.

You stop announcing every dream before it has roots.

You stop needing unanimous approval.

You stop explaining yourself to people who were never going to understand anyway.

And perhaps most importantly, you stop confusing lack of permission with impossibility.

Those are not the same thing.

History is full of people who did things before anyone thought they were qualified to do them.

Creators made things nobody had asked for.

Inventors solved problems nobody believed could be solved.

Entrepreneurs started businesses nobody thought they needed.

Writers wrote books before anyone called them writers.

Musicians made songs before anybody knew their names.

The title usually comes later.

The work comes first.

That is the part people skip when they tell success stories.

We see somebody standing on the stage and assume there must have been a clear path to get there.

Most of the time, there was a period when they were just some person doing the thing without much evidence that anybody cared.

That part fascinates me.

The middle.

The unrecognized part.

The period when you know what you are trying to become, but nobody else can see it yet.

That is where permission matters most.

Or more accurately, where you have to stop needing it.

Because there may be nobody around you who can validate something they have never seen before.

Sometimes the people closest to us cannot imagine our next chapter because they know us too well in the current one.

They remember what we were.

What we usually do.

What we have always done.

They may love us deeply and still have absolutely no idea what else is inside us.

That is not betrayal.

It is simply limitation.

Nobody else lives inside your imagination.

Nobody else hears the idea the way you hear it.

Nobody else feels the pull of something that has not been built yet.

At some point, that becomes your responsibility.

There is a sentence I think more people need to hear:

You are allowed to begin before anybody understands.

You are allowed to be bad at something new.

You are allowed to make something nobody buys.

You are allowed to change careers.

You are allowed to start over.

You are allowed to outgrow an identity that once fit you perfectly.

You are allowed to decide that the dream you abandoned at twenty-three deserves another conversation at fifty-three.

You are allowed to be a beginner again.

And maybe the strangest permission of all:

You are allowed to succeed.

I think sometimes we are almost as frightened of that as we are of failure.

Because success changes things.

It makes us visible.

It creates expectations.

It can separate us from the version of ourselves everybody knows.

And if we have spent years making ourselves smaller so everyone around us stays comfortable, becoming bigger can feel almost rude.

It isn’t.

You do not owe the world a smaller version of yourself just because that is the version it met first.

That may be the deepest permission we ever give ourselves.

The permission to become more.

Not more important.

Not more impressive.

Not more valuable.

More fully ourselves.

There is probably somebody reading this who has been waiting.

Waiting until the kids are older.

Waiting until there is more money.

Waiting until work slows down.

Waiting until they know more.

Waiting until they feel confident.

Waiting until the right person notices them.

Waiting until someone finally says:

Go.

Some of those circumstances genuinely matter.

Life is real.

Responsibilities are real.

Timing is real.

But sometimes waiting becomes a habit long after the reason for waiting has disappeared.

And one day you have to ask yourself a difficult question:

Am I waiting because I need more time, or am I waiting because I want somebody else to make the decision for me?

Those are very different things.

If it is the second one, maybe this is the day.

Not the day you quit your job without a plan.

Not the day you burn every bridge.

Not the day you make some dramatic declaration on social media about becoming your “authentic self.”

Please don’t make me responsible for that.

Maybe it is much simpler.

Maybe today you buy the notebook.

Register the domain.

Take the class.

Write the first paragraph.

Make the first call.

Play the first chord.

Open the document.

Make the ugly first version.

Tell one person you trust what you have been thinking about.

Maybe you finally stop waiting for the entire staircase to appear and put your foot on the first step.

That is usually how things begin.

Quietly.

Without trumpets.

Without certainty.

Without permission.

There comes a day when you realize the person you have been waiting for to say yes has been sitting in your chair the whole time.

And when that happens, something changes.

You stop asking:

“Am I allowed?”

And you start asking:

“What can I build?”

That question can change a life.

Maybe more than one.

Because you never know what might happen when somebody finally gives themselves permission to begin.

~ Michelle Mullins ~
Founder & Creative Director
Amplified Imagination Studios

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Every Story Becomes a Song, and Every Song Becomes a World.