Whose Permission Are You Waiting For?

Nobody is coming. And deep down, you already know that.

Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash

Tell me if this is just me.

The day is over, the kids are finally in bed, the kitchen is mostly clean, and for the first time all day, nobody needs anything from you.

You could just... sit, rest, relax, take a breath. Maybe read a book, drink a cup of tea, just something for yourself to unwind and let go of the day that is behind you.

And then your partner walks in, looks at you still standing in the kitchen wiping down a counter that is already clean, and says: “Hey. Go sit down. You have done enough.”

So you do.

And the embarrassing part? That is what it took. Your partner giving you permission to rest.

And I am sure there are more situations like this that sound familiar to you.

Maybe your doctor who finally said: you need to slow down. And only then did you book that Yoga class you have been thinking about for months.

Or the friend who told you: let’s do that night out. And suddenly it felt possible.

Here is what I have noticed in my own life and in other women I met: we are really good at giving ourselves permission to do more. It is the doing less, the choosing ourselves, the taking up space without justification where we fail to say yes to ourselves on a regular basis. So, we wait for someone else to unlock the door.

So why are we doing this, you ask?

As it is most often the case, it has a lot to do with social conditioning and the gender roles that come with it. From a very young age, girls are praised for being agreeable, easy, accommodating and nice. Needs were negotiable and often came after everyone else’s needs. Many women internalized a need for approval to ensure they remain “liked” or “polite.”

This is also heavily linked with a fear of judgment and rejection. Outside validation often masks as a safety net. If you follow it, it acts as a shield against failure and “protects” you from intense self-doubt or criticism. In other words, it feels safer.

Another deeply internalized behavior is feeling guilty for deciding without external approval. Guilt became our internal compass: if it feels selfish, it probably is. The problem is that compass is broken. It was calibrated by other people’s expectations, not our own needs. So, we keep course-correcting toward everyone else and slowly drift further from ourselves.

And guilt has a best friend named: “I have to earn this before I am allowed to do it”. Rest, joy, time for yourself, these feel like rewards, not rights. So, we keep adding to the list of things we need to finish first. The list never ends and neither does the waiting.

The internalized behavior leads to strategies adding more need for outside permission, such as the responsibility shift. If someone else tells you it is okay, and it goes wrong, that means it is not fully your fault. Giving yourself permission means owning the outcome. So, we wait. And waiting feels safer than choosing.

And then there is the permission gap: a disconnect between internal desires and actually taking every action that it needs to achieve these internal desires. Because nobody hands out certainty or gives you a “green light,” we delay the decision which provides a false sense of security, masquerading as being “not ready”.

The permission gap is something I can see in myself a lot these days.

I spent years in corporate where decisions often go through layers of approval before anything actually happens. There was always a manager or a process. Someone or something that told you whether you were on the right track. I didn’t realize how much I had come to rely on that until it was gone.

For several years, I dreamed about being self-employed and building a business as Yoga Teacher. Then suddenly, the opportunity opened up. The chance to do something that was entirely mine. I became a yoga teacher and started building a business. And I promptly spent a good portion of that time waiting for someone to tell me I was doing it right.

Not because I lacked the skills or the knowledge. But because making your own decisions means owning what happens next — the good and the bad. And somewhere in all those years of corporate structures and approval processes, I had quietly outsourced that responsibility, and I had just gotten very comfortable there.

My perfectionism does the rest. If I think about something long enough, maybe the right answer will become so obvious that it won’t really feel like a decision at all. It’ll just feel like the only logical conclusion, and nobody can argue with that.

It took me a while to see that for what it is: waiting for permission in a very sophisticated disguise.

In yoga, there is a principle called Ahimsa: non-harm. We learn it and point it outward almost instinctively. No harm toward others, toward the world, toward every living thing around us. But then I noticed that I had quietly removed myself from that equation entirely and Ahimsa is more than just the outward direction. The constant second-guessing, the waiting, the refusal to trust my own judgment; that wasn’t humility. It was a slow, invisible harm I was doing to myself every single day.

And I don’t think I’m alone in this.

Here is what waiting actually costs you.

You lose touch with what you actually want. Not because it disappears but because you have spent so long not asking that the question starts to feel irrelevant. What do I want? I don’t know. I just need to get through this week first.

And life doesn’t pause while you figure it out. That opportunity at work goes to the colleague who was less qualified but said yes without hesitating. Not because they were better. Because they didn’t wait for someone to tell them they were the right fit. And every time you hesitate because you need approval from an external source, you reinforce the habit of second-guessing yourself. This slowly chips away at your own decision-making confidence.

And you know what the real irony about all of this is? You waiting is a decision. It is just the wrong one.

So where do you start?

First, a few shifts in how you think about this.

Waiting is already a decision, and you took it without permission from someone else. So, you are in fact capable of making a decision without permission.

You don’t have to feel ready; you just have to decide. Most of us are waiting for that moment when the doubt clears and the confidence arrives, and everything feels certain enough to move. But that moment is not coming. Ready is not a feeling that shows up before you start, it’s usually what happens after you do. You don’t need 100% certainty (you won’t get it anyways), 60% is enough. The permission you give yourself doesn’t have to be complete or perfect. It just has to be real enough to take the next step.

Now the practical part. Small, on purpose.

Notice the moment you are hesitating and looking around for someone to tell you it’s okay; then pause. Name it, say to yourself: I am waiting for permission right now. That awareness alone starts to break the habit.

Start small: give yourself permission for something small and easy. Let it be the permission to rest, or to purchase a small thing without overthinking it. And when you do it, be conscious about it and say to yourself: I’m giving myself permission to do this. Not because you think you earned it, just because.

Set a deadline for decisions. Not because fast is better, but because endless deliberation doesn’t bring clarity, it just brings more doubt because you start to overthink it. Give yourself a timeframe and honor it.

And here is the thing nobody tells you.

You have been waiting for someone to come and give you the green light. But nobody is coming.

It is YOU. It has always been you.

The permission you have been looking for? You are the only one who can give it.

And in the spirit of ahimsa — non-harm — maybe it is time to include yourself in that practice. To stop waiting as an act of self-care. To decide as an act of kindness toward yourself.

If this landed somewhere true for you, I write for women who are done performing fine. You can subscribe and I will show up in your inbox every week with something honest and something useful.

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And if you want a first small step you can take today towards giving yourself permission: I put together a short guide for women who are ready to stop waiting — just a few small, honest practices to help you find your way back to yourself. It is completely free and you can get it here: 5 Days of Small Things.