Stop Asking Permission
I hate rules. The thing I hate most about them is the assumption that, “if there is a rule, it must be for a good reason.” This assumption causes millions of people to do things that make no sense every day of their lives. Following the rules is lazy. It puts too much faith in the fact that someone else knows more than you do. But this post is not about rules. It’s about permission. And the reason I’m talking about rules is because I’ve found that there is a correlation between people who are very concerned with the making and following of rules, and people who feel they must ask permission.
Let me show you how the two relate. It starts in school, when you must raise your hand to go to the bathroom, get a hall pass to walk from room to room, and get told which classes you must take. It is reinforced at work, when you must fill out a vacation request form to take time off, have a set of hours you must be in the office, and are told which computer programs you’re allowed to use. You get in the habit of following all of these rules, like a robot, on autopilot through your day. Before you take any step, you consider the rules. If you are unclear on them, you go to someone with authority and ask for permission. You rely on them to tell you what to do. Maybe you complain about it, because there is nothing more infuriating than when someone proudly explains, “those are the rules, I don’t make ‘em, I just follow ‘em.” Maybe you disagree, but chances are, you follow them too.
I learned a lot about where rules come from when I used to negotiate labor agreements. In labor negotiations, you create a collective bargaining agreement (a book of rules for union workers), and you even go so far as to outline the specific ramifications for not following them. What you see throughout this process is that most rules develop out of a lack of distinction between “positions” and “interests.” One person comes with one example of one time that someone showed up with open toed shoes and hurt their toe, and forever after there is a rule that everyone must where steel-toed boots to work. Rather than focusing on the interest,(namely, that people are safe and injury free), the focus gets put on the position (that you must wear steel-toed shoes).
This may seem like a silly example, and I’ll bet a lot of you are wondering why I would be against people wearing safe shoes at work, but the reality is that once something becomes codified as a rule in writing, people treat it as gospel — they forget that it probably was created under a time crunch, without a ton of thought or research, thrown at the wall to see if it worked (in the absence of a better solution), and that there are many other ways to accomplish that same objective (interest) without having that specific rule.
At work, rule followers have a set salary range they get paid, because their work falls into a known box. They have easily explainable job titles and roles. They know how many years before they can get a promotion. Their paths are already forged by the footsteps of those before them. They do this because they have bought into the myth that asking permission and following rules is the best way to get ahead. Sadly, for them, nothing distinguishes a person less than doing exactly what everyone else is doing.
On the other hand, all the people I know who are doing interesting things with their lives — the things that make you insanely jealous, asking “how do they get to do that?” — view rules as guidelines. They don’t ask for permission to do things in their own way, because they already know they have it. Instead, they like to face every rule with curiosity, asking “I wonder why this rule exists? I wonder what they were trying to achieve? Is there another way to achieve this aim?” This mindset enables you to identify the biases that typically stand in the way of innovation and of people being creative. In identifying why something is the way it is, rather than assuming it is the way it is because that is the way it has to be, or because that is the best way for it to be, you can start to think of other ways to achieve your goal.
“You’re not the boss of me.” — Me, constantly
Now I’m not suggesting that people should go around blatantly breaking rules and pissing everyone off. You’ll have more success if you don’t intentionally step on anyone’s toes, so walking around saying, “you’re not the boss of me,” will probably attract attention you don’t want when you are better off flying under the radar. I’m advocating for another, more subtle, path — finding a way around the rules. Finding a way around the rules is more complicated, it requires more thought and creativity, but it also provides better outcomes. To go around the rules, you have to know what they are. You have to ask “why” they exist, and you have to ask whether you could achieve that ‘why’ some other way.
In my life, I got into an ivy league school after having tested so low that I had to take a remedial math course at a community college. I got the most desirable job opportunities after almost getting kicked out of business school for having a low gpa in required introductory courses. I was offered money to start a business, without a business plan or any entrepreneurial experience. None of these things would have happened if I had followed the rules and asked for permission. I would have been just another mediocre face in the crowd. All of these things happened because I refused to blindly ‘follow the leader.’ I created independent studies, internships, jobs that didn’t exist, and every step of the way believed wholeheartedly that no one needed to give me permission to do this. Instead of just complaining about the rules (which I also did), I showed that the same objectives — learning, gaining work experience, forging a career path — could be done in a new way.
It is this art, of carefully balancing a respect for the reasons rules exist with a belief that humans are inherantly born with permission (responsibility even), to do things in completely new and creative ways, that will propel you above the permission-asking, rule-following masses. And when you are considering the best ways to self manage an exceptional and meaningful career in line with your Ikigai, this ability, perhaps above all others, will help you.
Stop waiting for someone to hire you into the job you want — just do the work. Stop asking for someone to hold a course on a topic you are interested in — create it yourself. Stop thinking that the fastest way to what you want is a path someone else created — make a faster route.
