One of the cleverest things marketing does is give us permission to do things. Marketing knows we are told not to do things since childhood, told we shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t do that: and it knows we all privately, secretly, rebel against this feeling.

 

So if marketing tells us we have permission to do something, we feel released, and we do it.

 

Unfortunately, the thing they normally give us permission to do is to spend money on the thing they’re selling, which is often something we don’t really need. We get so much of this permission every minute of every day, that we eventually listen to some of it, and buy something we don’t value as much as the money we had, and so we tell ourselves we shouldn’t do that in future.

 

But that feeling of “shouldn’t” becomes something we feel we should rebel against again, and so the cycle repeats.

 

We already discussed how the inventor of modern marketing changed the world by encouraging American women to smoke by telling them it would show their liberation from men who insisted they shouldn’t smoke as it is unladylike. It is that powerful.

 

We can use that power for ourselves, though. We can give ourselves permission. You can find something you have been telling yourself you shouldn’t do, you’re embarrassed to do, and do it anyway.

 

Like my wobbling, which I find embarrassing to admit, and you may be embarrassed to follow. Give it a try. No one needs to see or know.

 

Or making the little 8-page book and tracking your spending. Or taking 10 breaths. Or breathing for 5 minutes. Or opening a savings account.

 

Is a feeling, an emotion, a thought, holding you back from doing something? It might have twisted the restriction into not liking, not having the energy, not feeling right for it. Think about it a little harder. Think about which of the last 26 steps you feel you are least likely to do, and then give yourself permission to do it.

 

If it helps you, imagine me giving you the permission. Imagine your family and friends giving you the permission. Give yourself permission to change.