“Dream and give yourself permission to envision a You that you choose to be.” -Joy Page
Give yourself permission to be awesome and you can do anything you want. Just picture what you really want to do. It costs nothing to imagine and believe, and no one can stop you from thinking it.
Since it’s free to believe, go wild and imagine yourself doing whatever you want. Flying a plane, becoming friends with people you admire, traveling, dancing, playing live to thousands, writing, painting, getting a great body, whatever.
As soon as you picture yourself able to do something, it gets easier to actually start because your goal becomes real. It’s not an abstract dream but a realistic goal that you already pictured yourself doing. You’ve given yourself permission to be awesome. Now just do it.
Picture Yourself Doing It – It’s Free to Believe
Most people can’t envision being or doing something, so they stop themselves from even thinking or feeling that way. Common excuses: I could never do that, I don’t have the money, I’m not cut out for that activity, I’m shy or introverted.
Seriously? You’re not actually doing it yet, you’re just picturing yourself doing it. It’s free to believe. Your dreaming budget is unlimited, so go crazy. Just try it. It feels sweet, like discovering an easy ability you didn’t know you had.
Give yourself permission to be awesome. It’s the first step towards doing anything you want.
Ignore Naysayers
If it’s free to believe, why would anyone stop themselves from even doing that? Answer: naysayers. People telling you it’s impossible. After a while, those comments get to you, and you start limit yourself. You come up with excuses mentioned earlier.
But guess what? Absolutely no one can stop you from imagining and believing something. Your mind is yours alone. It’s impossible for someone to physically get into your head.
You’re just letting naysayers convince you psychologically. So stop letting such weak forces control you. It’s super simple to do: just ignore people’s comments and focus on what you want. It’s that simple. It’ll be difficult at first—thanks to peer and family pressure—but gets easier very quickly.
When you’re hungry, you eat the food that you want. You give yourself permission; you don’t think twice. You picture yourself eating that food and then eat it. It doesn’t matter if people think that food sucks and tell you to eat something else: you’re going to eat it.
So why should your goals and desires be any different? When you really want something, picture yourself doing it and then go do it. It doesn’t matter if the voice inside your head says you can’t or people don’t like it and tell you you can’t do it: you have the power and ability to go do it anyway.
So do it. Give yourself permission to be awesome.
I Used to Not Believe I’m a Writer, Now I Do
Before starting this website, I didn’t think I’d be a writer. Anytime the idea entered my head, I quickly dismissed it. A writer? Not me. Why would people read what I have to say? And how could I compose anything interesting? No, to be a writer I had to have excellent writing skills, kept a journal, wrote poems, have a novel I want to write. I’m a music-maker, that’s it.
Turns out I just wasn’t giving myself permission to be awesome. I was stopping myself from even picturing writing. Thing was, as I read and listened to personal development books, built an online business, grew as a person, and developed my music-making and creativity, I kept having more ideas enter my head. Ideas on bettering work, life and creativity.
At first, I kept the ideas to myself; I didn’t even write them out. Just my own thoughts on my personal development, I said to myself. But the ideas kept coming, and so did increasingly awesome conversations with people. Not only talking about our interests and hobbies but effective ways on finding our unique path in life, bettering ourselves, building ideal lifestyles, doing what we want no matter what anyone thinks.
I felt I could take these conversations online to inspire and get inspired by even more people. So how do I do that? A blog is the natural choice. Does that mean I have to write? I guess so.
For the first time, I considered being a writer.
It cost nothing to believe, so I imagined writing and posting articles, building followers, having awesome conversations. After a few days, I thought, hey, I could actually do this. Being a writer was no longer some far-off fantasy: I can be one if I wanted to. So at that moment—spring of 2009—I decided to be a writer.
It was weird considering myself a writer at first, but after a few weeks of awkwardly telling people that I was a writer—and getting rolling eyes and condescending laughs—I got comfortable with it. I’m a writer.
Now you’re reading my writing, and hopefully I’ll have a conversation with you about finding your unique path in life. And all it took was giving myself permission to be awesome, to picture myself being a writer, to make it a reality.
Give Yourself Permission to Be Awesome
What would you love to do? What’s holding you back from doing it? That you think you can’t? People tell you to get real? Don’t let such weak forces control you. Only you are in control of your mind. Give yourself permission to be awesome.
The first step towards realizing your dream is to picture yourself doing it. It’s free to imagine, and no one can stop you, so go nuts: envision yourself doing what you want to do.
Once you picture yourself doing what you’d love to do, your goal becomes real, and it’s easier to actually start. Imagine yourself doing it. Give yourself permission to be awesome. If you believe you can do it, you can.
“The person who says something is impossible should not interrupt the person who is doing it.” -Chinese proverb
Useful Stuff Elsewhere
279 Days to Overnight Success – Chris Guillebeau’s incredibly useful manifesto on how to create your own success with your own project.
The Zero Hour Workweek – Excellent and entertaining free ebook by Jonathan Mead on how to get paid to be you.
