Giving Yourself Permission to Do What You Really Want

“You’ve got to go with your desire to feel good.” – Abraham Hicks

Our desires shape our lives. These can be desires of avoidance: I don’t want to be ridiculed, I don’t want to get hurt or desires of accumulation: I want to live in a house by the beach, I want to find love. We all have desires, and we know in our gut whether these desires are beneficial to us (say, prioritizing good health, creativity, and travel) or maybe, not as good for us (eating an entire pizza in one sitting or sleeping with an ex, for instance.) 

You are allowed to want whatever you want. 

Give yourself permission to want whatever it is that you want, and to go after it because no one else can do that for you.

You don’t have to stay at the same job, in the same city, or in the same soul crushing relationship. You don’t have to wear clothes that blend in with others around you if you’d rather dress like a disco ball, or stay caught up on social media if it drains your energy. You don’t have to own a home, finish school, or go to that boring ass spin class every week. You don’t have to eat what the magazine told you that Victoria’s Secret model eats. You don’t have to stay overweight. You don’t have to obsess over your weight. You don’t have to have a big wedding. You don’t have to go to that baby shower for your frenemy. You don’t have to decorate your home tastefully and subdued. You don’t have to wear jeans every day. You don’t have to do any of it!

You can fill your  home with wild naked lady art, and as much glitter as you choose. You can wear rhinestone sunglasses and leather skirts if that’s what you want. You can travel the world and pick up odd jobs and write. You can leave your hometown and become a beach bum for life. You can leave your corporate or government job, bartend to pay the bills, and work on building your own business.

Need someone to give you permission? I volunteer. I give you permission to do whatever the fuck you want.

If you want love and marriage and babies and to grow your own food in the country and to start a business where you make cakes shaped like pop stars, that is your birth right!

If you want to devote your life to cleaning up and creating less waste on our planet, start doing it. Write a book that helps people waste less in their daily lives. Post one social media post a day that helps people make a change, or point them to resources that teach them how to make an impact.

If you want to build a mini castle and have multiple lovers and build an enormous aviary for your collection of wounded and exotic birds, only you can stop you.

If you want to work for yourself, no one is going to come knocking on your door pleading with you to start your business.

If you want to dye your hair like a sunset, cover yourself in tattoos, or get in amazing shape, you are the deciding factor.

It’s ok to want what you want. It’s ok to want marriage and true love forever. It’s ok to want a series of lovers and a life of adventure. It’s ok to want nice clothes, a big house with ocean views, world peace, or the most eco friendly home with zero carbon footprint.

It’s ok to want bigger boobs or a new dress. It’s ok to want a luxury vacation or a new car. It’s ok to want to be an artist, or a musician, or a writer. It’s ok to want whatever you desire. It’s ok to want babies, or none at all. It’s ok to want to sow your wild oats. It’s ok to want to cover your town in street art, or devote your life to turning waste into art.

It’s ok to have big, wild, delicious dreams. And it’s even more ok to go after them.

So many of us get it in our heads that we need to do what’s practical, what’s expected of us, what our parents want for us, what our political party wants for us. All of these groups and people might think they have us in their best interest, but no one else can know what makes you happy, or what’s best for you, better than you.

Think about the last decade, and how fast it’s moved. The next one will move even faster. Do you remember what you wanted for yourself ten years ago? Has that happened for you? Why or why not? Do you still want the same things, or have they changed and shifted a little?

Hopefully, many of the thing you did want have come to fruition, and you can say, hell yeah! I did it! Some of it, anyways.

Use that proof that you can create what you desire as fuel to get where you want to go in the next ten years. Ten years is no time at all and enough time to make big changes, so don’t get overwhelmed if your dreams are big and seem out of reach. They are attainable with consistent effort and small actions that build up over time. Like, say, for instance, ten years.

Ten years ago I was still struggling with my eating disorder, and had already decided I wanted to move past it, but I knew it would not be an overnight change. Today, I see food as fuel, pleasure, and am not obsessing about it all day. I have so much more mental space to have fun, have a life, create, and love. My eating disorder took up so much of my energy and brain power. I knew it at the time, and it drove me crazy that thoughts of my body, weight, self loathing, and food dominated my days.

That’s not to say I haven’t overeaten or under ate or felt insecure in the last ten years, because I have. But I can happily say with dedication, I am free from my eating disorder. I love food. I love my body. I feel good in my own skin a majority of the time, and have so much more mental space for other more fun and worthwhile things, which is the very best part of recovery.

Ten years ago, I also wanted to live on the West Coast. I wanted to surf, to never experience the entirety of a Chicago winter ever again, to spend more time in nature, and to have my own house I could decorate in a way that made me feel inspired. Check, check, check, check, check.

I also wanted to prioritize my creativity. I loved writing and making art, but my eating disorder and self loathing kept me in a state of paralysis. I was also a perfectionist, and didn’t see the value or pleasure in first drafts, sketches, etc. I wanted to start and finish a completed, perfect project or I wasn’t interested. I have since let go of the perfection mindset and write and create so much more as a result. If I’m not writing or making something every day, it’s at least several times a week, for the sheer enjoyment I get out of it! Because part of my life mission is to create whether that creation sees the light of day or not. As a result, I create infinitely more, because the pressure is off.

The next ten years are yours to do what you’d like with. If you’re reading this, you’re in a spot where you are at the very least curious about living out your wildest dreams, and warming up to the idea that you deserve to. This is a beautiful space to be in, because the more you feel worthy of what you want, the more likely you are to go after it, and accept it when it’s there for the taking.

The more you feel worthy of your desires, the more of them you will accept. The better you feel, the faster your desires will come to fruition in the next ten years. The worse you feel, the slower the process.

Don’t ever feel like you have to create your life with “shoulds” in mind. To be frank, you’re going to die and your life is your canvas so you might as well show up as your true self and do what you want to do because, why wouldn’t you? To please others? To fall into the status quo? For security or safety?

What’s the point? If medical school sounds like a drag, fuck it. Don’t go.

Give yourself permission to explore and figure out what you like and what you want if you don’t know.

Do you need a permission slip or a sign? Here you go. This is it. When you look back on your life, what do you want to have experienced, created, and left behind? Start making it happen.

Exercise: Take out a pen and paper, or your voice memo app on your phone, and write or record an answer to these questions: What do I want my life to look like in the next ten years? What steps can I take today to move in that direction? What beliefs and habits are getting in my way?

Keep this in your wallet, or on your phone, in your planner, or in your nightstand drawer and revisit it every couple of months.

You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t need to know every step. You just need to move in the direction of what you want, and do the next thing in front of you. It will unfold for you in time. Just do the next thing!

Give yourself permission to explore and figure out what you like and what you want if you don’t know.