It’s nice to get permission. Even if you don’t need it.

Particularly when you decide to make a big important decision. It could be quitting a job, deciding to take some new opportunity, moving somewhere, etc… You’ve already decided in your head but you tell a few people you love, trust and respect because there’s a small part of you who wants support. A small desire for permission to go out and do what you already planned on doing. It’s like how one may seek the blessings of one’s future-in-laws before asking to propose.

I find this to be ever more valuable in small habits too. My daily journaling tends to take about 45mins every day but sometimes it can be two hours and I am often hit with a pang of guilt for that. But what warmed my heart was hearing someone I admire, in this case it’s Derek Sivers, talk about how he journals for 1-3 hours daily. I didn’t need permission to journal daily… it’s been something I loved doing since 2014? but as the practice evolved from 5 mins to 45 mins to the rare 2 hours…it’s nice to know that I’m not alone. 

It’s even better to know that someone I admire does something I sometimes feel guilty of doing. It brings me to think that these are the factors that attract us to people we deem as heroes and to bring together people we want to make our “inner circle”. It’s the people who regularly practice the things we might feel guilty of or feel silly at times but they constitute that as a ’norm’ when we are around them.