I’ve had people tell me I shouldn’t do things for most of my life.
Sometimes they were right.
Sometimes they weren’t.
And sometimes I went ahead and did it anyway, just to find out.
Some decisions worked out beautifully. Others were spectacular failures.
That’s life.
But here’s something I’ve never quite understood.
When did somebody else’s opinion become more important than our own curiosity?
We spend a good portion of childhood being told what we can and can’t do. Parents, teachers, all sorts of people making decisions for us.
That’s understandable. Kids need some guidance.
But eventually we’re supposed to grow up.
And somehow, a lot of us keep looking around for somebody to tell us what we’re allowed to do.
Can I start a business? Change careers? Learn something completely new? Move somewhere different?
What will people think?
There’s a question that’s stopped an awful lot of interesting things from happening.
And sometimes nobody even tells us no.
We imagine what they’ll think. We imagine the criticism. We imagine looking foolish.
Then we talk ourselves out of it.
Nobody had to stop us. We did the job ourselves.
I’ve made plenty of decisions that didn’t work out. And I suspect there are people who could happily remind me of a few.
But I’ve also had some wonderful experiences because I went ahead when somebody thought I shouldn’t.
I listen to advice. Sometimes I even take it.
But there’s a difference between listening to somebody and handing them the steering wheel.
And the older I get, the less interested I am in letting somebody else decide what I’m allowed to explore.
You don’t need permission to try something.
You don’t need permission to make a mistake, either.