677. Growth Starts When You Stop Waiting for Permission

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What if the biggest thing holding you back is waiting for someone else to say yes? In this powerful solo episode, Lesley Logan continues her permission series and unpacks why so many people second-guess their desires, choices, and next moves. She shares how childhood conditioning, perfectionism, and the need for approval keep people stuck far longer than they realize. From Brené Brown permission slips to boundaries, intuition, and radical responsibility, Lesley offers practical ways to trust in your own intuition.

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In this episode you will learn about:

  • Why asking permission becomes a hidden habit.
  • Lesley’s Pilates journey challenged needing approval.
  • How Brené Brown uses written permission slips.
  • Difference between seeking feedback versus validation.
  • Recognize that personal growth involves change.


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Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

According to wonder within the path to permission is not an easy one. It's rocky, complicated and cold, and can even be confusing because we have to unlearn and untangle. 


Lesley Logan 0:10  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.


Lesley Logan 0:52  

Hello, be it, babe. Well, welcome back to our series on permission. On our Tuesday episode. If you missed it, we were talking about like, what is asking for permission? Look like, where does it come from? Why do we do this? I shared some stories. Some of you had sent me some great stories of your own. I love that you're loving that I'm doing this solo episode on this. And please keep sending your questions in your topic requests in, be it pod.com/questions you can also send your wins in there as well. Maybe you have a win that you stopped asking for permission. I'd love to know that. But be it pod.com/questions, is where you can send in all those things. I'm hopeful to have some more different topics. We could do a couple episodes on, just to kind of go deeper on some of these things. I'm hearing our amazing guests give us, BE IT action items on they're like, don't ask permission. Just do it. It's like, well, what the fuck did like you mean, just do it easy. Easy for them to say they weren't raised to put other people's needs before their own. They weren't raised to go, like, to not seek approval from others. They weren't raised to not like, look crazy, right? So they aren't constantly hearing just different things, where people go, oh, you believe she did that? She's so greedy. I mean, they gave, they've they gave the team a locker room on Tuesdays and Thursdays now, they went on Saturdays too? Like, those are things we pick up when we're children and teenagers and young adults. We pick up on these things where people are saying things mostly about women, about when they step outside those traditional roles when they do something against the grain. And I'm not saying you have to go be against the grain. What I am saying is you can't be it till you see it. If you're waiting for someone else's permission to start being it, you have to give it to yourself. But how do we do that? So let me go to my notes, and in my research, I have sources, so we put those in the show notes as well. There's some really great reading in Psychology Today and all these different things, so it's pretty great. 


Lesley Logan 2:44  

Okay, so now we know we are often conditioned to ask for permission, and in the last episode, I do want to highlight, we did talk about the permission gap. We also talked about the signs to close it. So the gap is basically the gap between, like, what we want and what we think people's needs are, and then putting their needs in front of our own. And so we're kind of all and so we're kind of always in the negative for what we need, and then we're asking for permission to give ourselves what those needs are. So, according to Wonder Within, the path to permission is not an easy one. It's rocky, complicated and cold, and can even be confusing because we have to unlearn and untangle. So on Tuesday, I challenged you, I gave you a bunch of different signs, feelings, examples of like, what like, what permission looks like, asking permission looks like. And so hopefully able to explore that and now means we have to unlearn and untangle. If you listen to the series that came out starting in December of 2025 we did a whole habit series we talked about in one of the episodes, all about unraveling a bad habit, and that is in air quotes, and it's really, truly unraveling. It's not breaking it. I was very specific on that, because we do have to unravel. We have to understand, like, what's the prompt? And I will say this unraveling, untangling the habit of asking for permission is advanced habit making, because you have to be aware of yourself asking for permission. It's not the same as I want to build a habit of running around the block in the morning that is very tangible. It's easier for your brain to go, oh, I went around the block this morning, versus catching yourself asking for permission or filling the need to ask for permission, because that's a psychological habit, and you'll have to have that self awareness. So I just want to say it might take longer than you think, okay, but definitely check out that episode. So permission to become to be till you see, it might be the biggest work that we have to do. That's what I believe. After doing all this research, I'm like, oh my God, I feel like I need a permission slip expert. It may include working with a trauma informed therapist, a somatic worker. So even with all the suggestions that I'm about to give you, I want you to understand that if you need extra support, that is okay, okay. It is really, really okay. And I need you to know that it's okay and you're not asking for permission when you hire an expert in trauma or like somatic work or therapy or any kind because. That's actually saying, hi, I need help. That's not you asking for permission, right? 


Lesley Logan 5:04  

Hey, so I told you in the last episode about when I wanted to I thought about becoming a Pilates instructor. Like, I was like, I had this thing, this thought, and I recognize now that I was kind of asking for permission to belong, for permission to fit into the Pilates role. Because, to be honest, at the time, there was not Pilates instructors who did not discover Pilates from dancing. So that felt so weird. Also, I knew I couldn't afford the comprehensive training, so I was gonna start the mat training then save up my money for comprehensive training, which I did a year later. And I remember thinking like, Oh, my God, maybe I can't do it because, like, I can't do the whole thing at the same time. And so I do recall asking for permission, right? I remember being in vintage and basically just saying, Well, tell me what to do. I'll just do whatever you want me to do, which is just me asking for permission so that I can do be the thing that belongs. Because we all want to belong. Sometimes we're just like, hey, just how do I be perfect so I can not get kicked out of this group because we just want to belong. But really, and what they challenged me with is like, Oh no, we're not going to tell you what to do. You're going to figure you've got to feel what you need to do. It's got to be intuitive. It's got to be something that you understand for your body. And oh, my god, that is permission from them to be in my body, which is not something any teacher had given me. All the teachers before had been like, do it like this. You do it like this. And just telling me what to do, and that was kind of my whole life, right, covering perfectious over achiever, lots of people telling me the right thing to do, and just following the checklist and following the path. And so I had a whole adult life. Thank God for Pilates and the curiosity that gave me start going, oh, look at me. Like not checking a box here with a smile on my face. So think about one thing that you have been wanting could be as small as a food craving for today's lunch, or as big as an idea you want to take action on. So you're thinking about it. Got it in your head, what is keeping you from taking the next step?


Lesley Logan 6:57  

How much permission do you feel you have or don't have. Who decides how much permission you do or don't have? Is it possible that they are irrelevant? In my case, the people that I thought I needed permission from was the world of Pilates, they didn't even know me. They're so irrelevant. They didn't even know me, right? I was giving so much power to a bunch of people I didn't even know existed. So can you give yourself permission? Take a deep breath, right? A deep breath, if you've listened to episode 400 about upper limiting sometimes we get outside of our comfort zone, and then wild things come through worry. Do you feel some worry right now? Worry is a sign of upper limiting to pull you back into your comfort zone, right? Self-deprecating can be so I'll just want to, like go through those questions one more time. So what's something you want to be taking action on or wanting or desiring, no matter how small it is. Okay? So what's keeping you from taking that step or trying that thing or ordering that thing? How much permission do you feel you need you have or don't have for that who decides how much permission you do or don't have, and is it possible that they are relevant. Can you give yourself permission? So Brené Brown gives herself permission slips. It's actually in her book, dare to lead. She said, I give myself permission slips. And they say, I give myself permission to blank. So to make mistakes, to rest. I love this. I think this is a really great way to close that gap and to get rid of the habit of asking for permission is just to give, like literally write yourself permission slips. So if you remember my dear friend Nikole, whose last name is escaping me, sorry, team, she said two episodes, oh my god. Why is it not coming up anyway? So she talked about, in the first episode about all the different post it notes that she put around her house affirmations, and then she'd take them down because people are coming over, because she didn't want any single person to be able to give her any nagging thing that would remove the permission she'd given herself. So maybe you need to put little permission slips everywhere. I give myself permission to try a new outfit today. I give myself permission to make a mistake. I give myself permission to go a different route. I would give myself permission to ask that person for that thing. I give myself permission to rest. I give myself permission to turn off my phone. I give myself permission to not respond. 


Lesley Logan 9:31  

So use clear and powerful language to empower yourself. That's really, really important. Affirmations are really helpful. So this one will start kind of the same way. I give myself permission to be successful. I give myself permission to be authentic. I give myself permission to pursue my dreams, right? So affirmations can also be helpful in also going with what Brené Brown's mission slips are. You can do a meditation. So this meditation is really easy one. You can take your hands, put them on your heart, close your eyes and say, I've got this or you've got this beautiful right, hands on the heart, eyes closed, you've got this beautiful. It's one of Fridays. The episodes I give you as an affirmation, I say it three times. I'm hoping you're saying it out loud with me. I'm giving you a second to do that. I want you to give yourself permission to have that affirmation to be it till you see it. And of course, journaling. Journaling is always a great thing. Look like you'd be surprised what comes out of your head when you journal. I like free writing. If you haven't done the book The Artist's Way, it's 12 weeks of journaling prompts and really will help you peel back the onion of why you're asking for permission in the first place, especially if you go into the book with that in mind, you're going to start to like, answer those questions with those thoughts, and it's going to give you a whole host of information. It's such a great thing to do. You can do it annually. You can do it more often than once, but it's really, really great. I highly recommend it. 


Lesley Logan 10:59  

Okay, so tips for cultivating self-permission. So here's some other tips and tools you can use. So accept 100% responsibility. This is very difficult for some people, because that means responsibility for your own mistakes as well, but acknowledge that you are responsible for your own life, actions and responses. This shifts you from a victim mindset to one of empowerment, removing the blame, shame and guilt game. So what happens when you accept responsibility? It means you cannot you're not asking for cannot. You're not asking permission for people. It also means you can't say, oh, my kids wouldn't let me do Pilates today. Gotta accept 100 responsibility, right, radical responsibility,


Lesley Logan 11:31  

Another thing. Let go of the need for external approval. Recognize that relying on others for validation can prevent you from trusting your own judgment. I think that's really, really true. I got a medical diagnosis that isn't bad, don't freak out, but it's, it's not great either. And I'm a verbal processor, so I I like to talk about it to kind of, like, understand how I'm feeling, and it's interesting. Like, what I talked about with, like, some people my wife, are like, well, whatever you need, you can recover here. You could do this thing. Brad's like, so you're thinking about doing this. Like, it wasn't, I wasn't asking for permission. I was just, like, talking about it, right? And then I had another friend I was sharing it with, and they were almost talking me out of the thing. I remember going, what the fuck, right? So it made me go, ugh, because I was a little annoyed that she wasn't like, like everybody else. But then I was like, Wait, why do I care what she thinks, right? So it's interesting thing. There's like, just start to recognize when you're relying on the validations of other people and that, and then their lack of validation that causes you to think differently. Now, by the way, it's okay that she has me think differently. It really made me go back and kind of research what she was saying and making sure that, like, I almost got more secure in my decision because of it. So it's also fine to talk things out, but just notice, or maybe what she said could have got me to go, oh, maybe I don't need to do that. Those are all fine things, but just it's a very different thing from getting feedback versus validation. There are two different things. 


Lesley Logan 12:51  

Embrace imperfection and mistakes, so give yourself permission to be human, to be wrong and to learn from what doesn't work. Viewing failures as lessons, not torture, is crucial for growth, and I think this is really, really important. Really important in my journey of just like become a recovering perfectionist and overachiever, it's really helped me to not need permission, because I'm not trying to be perfect to the thing, and I'm allowing myself to learn and ask questions and be a human being who doesn't fail, but actually learns and then makes adjustments along the way. It's kind of like a route right when you're driving, and the map is like, go here. And then it's like, oh, we found a faster route. You didn't go, ugh, MapQuest. You're an asshole. You fucked up the last one. No, you just go, wow, thanks for getting better at what you do. You're just like, look at this app. So great. Like, we don't go, oh, my God, they got it wrong. No, we go, oh, they're like improving every time. 


Lesley Logan 13:44  

Set boundaries. Is vital to give yourself permission to say no to things that don't serve you, even if it makes others uncomfortable, this protects your time and energy for what truly matters to you. Erika Quest, she's been on the pod, we were talking the other day about, like, when people invite us to different things, like, we ask ourselves, is this more, or is it better? But more? Is it better? And if it's just more, then it's probably no, it's better. Gonna make my impact better? Gonna make me a better person? Then, yeah, I'll look into it. 


Lesley Logan 14:10  

Okay, listen to your own intuition. So reconnect with your inner voice and trust your gut feelings. The more you exercise permission muscle, the louder and clearer becomes. I am going to have a whole series on how to listen to your inner voice, so I'm not going to go deeper on that that will be coming up in a few weeks. Hey, be curious, not judgmental. So approach your feelings and experiences with curiosity rather than fear or judgment. Label your emotions to understand them better, which is a gateway to healing and growth. 


Lesley Logan 14:41  

Prioritize self-care and rest. Oh, hi, hello. Give yourself permission to rest, to recharge and enjoy life without guilt. Integrating self-care rituals into your daily routine helps make it a habit. Listen to the habit series so you have even better chance of doing that. But my goodness, you've got to prioritize your self-care so you get rid of that permission gap. And it's not that I'm like, You're not going to help other people or you're not going to care about them. It's just that, like, you can't care about them before your own air mask is on first. Hello. 


Lesley Logan 15:07  

Allow yourself to pivot. Recognize that personal growth involves change. Give yourself permission to change your mind, career or life direction if an old path no longer aligns with your evolving self. I mean, heck, you might have asked for permission to do something and someone talked you out of it, the thing you want to do, and now you're doing the thing that they gave you permission to do. So you're probably going to have to evolve, pivot, change things. And I would say, be nice to yourself. Have grace and space for recognizing that because, my goodness, everything you learn on that path is what's going to make you even better on the path that you're on now. So please be kind. 


Lesley Logan 15:38  

Another way to give yourself permission is, what's the cost of your inaction? What is the cost of doing nothing? What is the cost of not doing the thing you want to do? I want to dive deeper into that, into next week's episode with Dr. Corey. So, definitely be watching out for that interview, because I promise you, it's going to be so good. But I was like, oh my God. Yes, and I'm so glad that we talked about that in her episode. And keep in mind, after years of second guessing, after years of asking permission, for permission, it can be hard to trust yourself and believe you've got this. 


Lesley Logan 16:10  

So consider this permission to be you to be it till you see it. No one but you defines the scope of what's possible, and no one but you can dare to believe that you can be it till you see it. No one but you can define the scope of what's possible, and no one but you can dare to believe that you can be it till you see it. I promise you that you are amazing. You don't need my permission to be it till you see it, but you might need my reminder that you can. And I hope each and every week, you say that to yourself as well. All right, babe, until next time, be it till you see it. 


Lesley Logan 16:41  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.


Brad Crowell 17:24  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.


Lesley Logan 17:28  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.


Brad Crowell 17:33  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.


Lesley Logan 17:40  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.


Brad Crowell 17:45  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.



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