Facing Fear and Writing Permission Slips

If you haven’t heard of Chris Guillebeau or read his blog, I highly recommend it. Here’s the link to Chris’ blog on the Art of Non-Conformity.

Today, he shared his TedTalk about Fear and Permission.

And then he wrote this, which, even if I try to paraphrase, I won’t get it quite right. So this is straight from Chris:

Many of us live our lives out of the fear of what other people think of us. We’re waiting for someone to give us a permission slip that tells us it’s OK to be ourselves.

The exotic is rarely the scary part. Moving to West Africa wasn’t scary at all. CHANGE is the scary part. Leaving your home is scary. Walking on a stage is scary. Packing up, taking a leap — those are the scary things.

Don’t try to be fearless or pretend you aren’t impacted by fear. Just try to prevent fear from making your decisions for you.

This just resonates.

Are you living in fear? Are you waiting for permission?

Personally, I love the life that I lead, and even though I don’t fit the “mold” of what I should do and be doing, I wouldn’t want it any other way. For the last few years I have been struggling with finding the “permission” to pursue my dreams. Well, I wrote my own permission slip for it. I said that I would go for it and see what happens. The worst that could happen is that I could fail, and learn something. A life lesson.

Here’s to giving yourself permission to face your fears and walk in the direction of your dreams. Or run. Whatever suits your fancy.

Give yourself permission to pursue your joie de vivre.