Stop Waiting for Permission: Why Most People Never Take Real Charge of Their Lives

The biggest lie we tell ourselves isn't about money, relationships, or even our weight. It's this: "I'll be confident when..."

When I get the promotion. When I lose the weight. When I find the right partner. When the kids move out. When I finally understand cryptocurrency.

Here's what 17 years of coaching executives, tradies, and everyone in between has taught me - confidence isn't a destination you arrive at. It's a decision you make every bloody morning.

And most people? They're still waiting for someone else to give them permission to make it.

The Permission Problem

I was guilty of this myself for years. Back in my early thirties, I was running a decent consultancy in Melbourne, decent car, decent house, decent everything. But I spent half my time asking my business partner what he thought about every decision. The other half, I was googling "how successful people think" at 2am.

One day, a client - a sparky from Frankston who'd built a million-dollar electrical contracting business - looked me dead in the eye and said, "Mate, you know your stuff. Why do you keep asking everyone else what to do?"

That question changed everything. Because he was right. I knew what to do. I just didn't trust myself to do it.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: 78% of professionals admit they regularly seek validation for decisions they already know the answer to. We've been conditioned to believe that taking charge means being reckless, arrogant, or stepping on toes.

Wrong.

What Taking Charge Actually Looks Like

Taking charge isn't about becoming some alpha personality who bulldozes through meetings (though LinkedIn seems to think it is). It's about owning your choices and their consequences.

Let me be controversial here: I think the whole "collaborative decision-making" movement has gone too far. Yes, input is valuable. But when you're spending three weeks and fourteen meetings to decide what colour to paint the office kitchen, you've lost the plot.

The most confident people I know make decisions with 70% of the information they'd ideally want. They accept that perfect information doesn't exist, and waiting for it is just fear dressed up as due diligence.

Take Sarah, one of my clients who runs a physio practice in Brisbane. She spent six months researching the "perfect" practice management software. Six months! Meanwhile, she was losing clients because her current system was held together with sticky tape and prayers. When she finally made a decision - not the perfect one, just a good one - her practice grew 40% in the next year.

The Confidence Equation Nobody Talks About

Here's where most confidence advice goes wrong. It focuses on feeling confident instead of acting confident. That's backwards thinking.

Confidence = Competence + Courage + Consistency

Notice what's not in that equation? Feeling ready. Feeling worthy. Feeling like you've got it all figured out.

I learned this the hard way when I had to fire my first employee. I felt sick to my stomach, questioned every decision I'd ever made, and nearly chickened out three times. But I did it anyway, because it was the right thing for the business. That action - not the feeling - built my confidence for the next difficult conversation.

The competence part is obvious - you need to actually know what you're doing. But here's the kicker: you don't need to know everything. You just need to know enough to start, and be willing to learn as you go.

Why Australians Struggle With This More Than Others

We've got a cultural problem in Australia called tall poppy syndrome, and it's killing our confidence. We're so worried about appearing up ourselves that we downplay our achievements and second-guess our decisions.

I see this constantly in my leadership skills workshops. Brilliant people who apologise before sharing their ideas. Managers who say "I might be wrong, but..." before stating facts they're absolutely certain about.

This isn't humility. It's self-sabotage.

Confidence isn't about thinking you're better than everyone else. It's about knowing your worth and not apologising for it. There's a difference between arrogance and assurance, and most Aussies err so far on the side of humility that they become invisible.

The Daily Habits That Build Real Confidence

Forget the motivational posters and vision boards. Confidence is built through small, daily actions that prove to yourself you can be trusted with bigger decisions.

Start with micro-decisions. What to wear, what to eat for lunch, which route to take to work. Stop asking others and start trusting your judgement on the small stuff first.

Practice saying no. This is huge. Every time you say yes to something you don't want to do, you're telling yourself your time and preferences don't matter. Start small - decline that pointless meeting, skip the work drinks you never enjoy anyway.

Document your wins. Keep a simple list of decisions that worked out. When doubt creeps in (and it will), you've got evidence that you actually do know what you're doing.

Make reversible decisions quickly. Most decisions can be undone or adjusted. Stop treating every choice like it's permanent.

The hardest part? You'll feel like a fraud at first. That's normal. I call it "confidence debt" - the gap between how capable you actually are and how capable you feel. The only way to pay it down is through action.

When Confidence Goes Wrong

Look, I've made my share of confidence-related mistakes. There was the time I expanded too quickly because I was "feeling confident" about the market. Cost me nearly $80,000 and a year of stress.

Real confidence includes knowing your limitations. It's being secure enough to admit when you're out of your depth and need help. The people who never ask questions or seek advice? They're not confident - they're insecure and trying to hide it.

I've also seen people mistake confidence for being a know-it-all. They steamroll conversations, dismiss input, and wonder why their teams don't respect them. That's not confidence - that's compensation for feeling inadequate.

The sweet spot is being decisive while remaining open to feedback, and standing firm on your values while being flexible on methods.

The Compound Effect of Small Bold Moves

Here's what nobody tells you about building confidence: it compounds like interest.

Each small act of taking charge makes the next one easier. The decision to speak up in that meeting leads to volunteering for the challenging project, which leads to applying for the promotion you never thought you deserved.

But like compound interest, the early stages feel frustratingly slow. You make one confident decision and... nothing dramatic happens. The world doesn't change overnight. This is where most people give up.

I worked with a financial advisor in Perth who was brilliant with numbers but terrible at business development. He spent two years letting opportunities slip by because he "wasn't a sales person." When he finally started making confident calls to potential clients, his business tripled in 18 months.

The difference? He stopped waiting to feel like a salesperson and started acting like one.

Why Perfect Timing Is a Myth

"I'm not ready yet" is the most expensive sentence in the English language.

Ready for what? To have perfect knowledge? To feel 100% certain? To guarantee success? None of that exists in the real world.

I've started three businesses, hired dozens of people, and made countless decisions that felt too big for me at the time. Not once did I feel completely ready. Not once did I have all the information I wanted.

But here's the thing - action creates clarity. You don't think your way into confidence; you act your way into it.

The market research you think you need? You'll learn more in one month of actually doing business than in six months of research. The perfect business plan? It'll be obsolete within three months anyway.

This doesn't mean being reckless. It means accepting that uncertainty is part of the deal, and the cost of waiting for certainty is usually higher than the cost of moving forward with incomplete information.

Other Articles Worth Reading:

• Professional Development Skills
• Learning Grid Posts

The confident you isn't a future version waiting to emerge when conditions are perfect. It's the person who decides to take charge with whatever knowledge, resources, and courage you have right now.

Because here's the final truth most people never realise: you're already more ready than you think you are.

Stop asking for permission. Start taking charge. The world needs what you've got to offer, but only if you're confident enough to offer it.