When a (now-galleried) photographer friend of mine was accepted into an MFA program, she told me, “I finally gave myself permission to be an artist.  When this happened, I had no other choice but to apply.”  That was five years ago, and now she’s enjoying yet another solo show in Berlin.*

And so the idea that we are often our own biggest obstacles to success is something that I accept as a truth.  So too, it seems, does Dave Eedle, who writes in “Give Yourself Permission To Be Rich” at TalkContent [bolding mine]:

In order to be rich, you need to think rich, which means that if you have been brought up to ‘think poor’ you need to learn how to think differently… To think rich, you need to think that you already have enough streetsmarts, ability, intelligence, energy, passion, commitment and implementation ability to make your business happen. When you believe this you will find the energy, your mind will work better at finding useful solutions for you, and obstacles will not seem so daunting to you when they turn up…

When you give yourself permission to be rich you are giving yourself permission to be the best you can be.

What do you think?  If you’ve given yourself permission to do something, what was it, and how did you get there?

* Said photographer has also attended a few DinnerGrrls.org events