“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
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(Image: Vocaloid)
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.
13 Comments
Oleg,
I got linked here from Ramit’s blog, and the title of this article caught my eye. I’ve been saying “I’m too awesome to…” fill in the blank with, be sick, be sad, not be awesome, etc. So I read your article. It’s good, I like it. I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I hate working, every job I can imagine, I imagine I hate it. So I want to be a writer. My stump is, I don’t know what to write about. I have a “blog” and by that I mean I set one up, I’ve yet to put anything on it. My biggest concern is, I want to write to pay the bills, and writing on a blog doesn’t do that, at least not at first, and writing for stock sites like helium pays a buck an article (woohoo ). Any tips for the aspiring writer (where to look for jobs, how to overcome the thoughts of “I’m totally awesome, but there are better writers than I am so why would any publisher choose me”, etc)?
Keep up the writing, it’s fun and I’d do it for not much money, but I want to at least feel a monetary accomplishment.
Thanks for reading and commenting Scott. I appreciate you sharing your personal story/situation. I feel you on dayjobs – I hated every one I was in, and after a while I realized that the work and schedule wasn’t for me.
I’d start with answering 3 questions:
1. What topics are you great at writing?
2. Which of those are you passionate about?
3. Will people pay you for them?
Like you mentioned, people won’t pay for just anything. But you don’t want to dread writing, so picking a profitable niche you aren’t interested in will only suck the joy out of writing (it did for my music when I was pursuing being a producer/recording engineer).
I’d combine all the great/passionate/profitable topics into one blog and write articles there, rather than giving your time for money at those we-pay-you-for-articles sites.
You can be remarkable and unique by writing great stuff that uniquely fuses all of those, similar to what Ramit does with I Will Teach You to Be Rich or Chris Guillebeau with The Art of Nonconformity. That’s what I’m hopefully doing with Lifebeat: write remarkable articles, build the readership, and then introduce value-giving paid products in a no-hype completely-optional manner.
Thanks a lot for asking this question; because of you I updated and improved this article by adding 2 links. I feel they’ll be of great help in answering those 3 questions and planning out a way to effectively accomplish your goal of being paid to do what you love. They were immensely helpful to me.
Let me know if you have any more questions. Love to help a fellow writer out. Keep up the writing yourself too
Best,
Oleg
Hey Oleg:
Great article as usual. Nevertheless, I believe that giving yourself a permission to be awesome is only the first step. I do agree that it is a very important first step, yet I believe the equally important issue is the maintenance of the attitude.
For example, I caught myself multiple times saying to myself: “This is it! This is it! I am changing! I am going to be AWESOME!” And I would be. I would be completely awesome for a day or two. But then, the whole being awesome feeling would wear out and I would be left tired and exhausted.
Being awesome is a process. It takes time and a lot of energy. So what’s the solution? I believe it is the best to start out slow and take small steps, then surround yourself with the right type of people and environment, which will then reinforce your new identity of being awesome. So when you do run out of energy, then you will be able to gain that energy from your surrounding and other people who will inspire you! Just like your work inspires my work and inspires me to keep at it.
Keep posting! I am choosing to be AWESOME too
Best,
Tomas
Thanks for the great comment Tom. You make a good point there, that picturing yourself doing something is only the first step. You need to keep the momentum going through action, by constantly achieving small goals or surrounding yourself with the right environment, like you mentioned.
But some people don’t even take that first step. When you tell them an idea or that they should pursue one of their passions they keep going on about, they immediately dismiss the idea. To even picture themselves doing it–which is completely free and limitless to do–is next to impossible.
By just taking that first step, they’re a LOT closer to being who they want to be. Even if it takes a few false starts to get going–like you mentioned as well–at least they know it’s a potential reality. And that’s why they’ll keep trying, and eventually getting it.
Thanks for the awesome conversation. Here’s to being increasingly awesome every single day
Best,
Oleg
The best advice I’ve ever been given was, “Don’t shoot small until you have to.” You can always second guess yourself. It’s better not to, especially if everyone else thinks you’re awesome. Why should you be the only one arguing?
Good post, Oleg.
Great advice, Josh. So true how we don’t need to shoot small unless it’s the last resort. Why do it, when we can achieve so much more – especially if others actually believe in you?
Thanks so much for the comment and all the best,
Oleg
OLEG YOU LEGEND!!
really really liked this post.
raw honest explosive honesty.
can fully relate to not feeling like you can write etc. bleh.
one of those things that’s really tough to rap about but you got to the juiciness proper.
busy writing something similar to this that ties into the imagination piece you spoke about .
love the way your site is growing man. really really dope. reminds me of when i was just starting.
can see you’re gonna lord it up.
here’s to lording the internet
alex – unleash reality
gave it a stumble too. should send some traffic to facilitate lordage
Thanks for reading and the great comment as always Alex. Appreciate the Stumble too
Your site has been growing awesomely, definitely becoming bigger and on its way to really great things. I’m humbled I remind you of your site when you were starting out, and with your vote of confidence (or should I say, lordiness). Pumps me full of confidence and drive even more now. Thank you.
Looking forward to reading your upcoming article (I know it’s gonna kick butt), and all the best,
Oleg
no praaaaahbs man.
really really feel it coming man, like… massive penthouse apartment, forgotten island adventures, matt black lambos, unforgettable times, livin the life nahmean?!?!
keep doing what you’re doing.
and do ample guest posts.
make sure you’re always putting out MONEY content. like, clever fresh quirky NEW GLORY
here’s to lording it up
Indeed, we are the creators of our realities. I we believe in something and work for it, we can achieve it. We have abilities far more than we can ever imagine, just like what you discovered about your wonderful ability to write. The reward is truly great if we just follow our dreams.
Thanks for reading and commenting Walter. Well put: we truly are creators of our reality. If we just let ourselves follow our dreams–and then make sure to stick to it, like Tom mentioned–we can unleash our ability to become what we dreamed of and more.
A humbling pleasure as always to receive your comments Walter.
Best,
Oleg
I love this post!
Glad you liked it Seph. Thanks for reading and hope to have you back again soon.
Oleg