Stop Waiting For Permission – SwagHer Magazine

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“Stop waiting for permission.” That’s the advice I would give to any woman.

For much of my life, I believed becoming a good woman meant becoming a smaller one.

Not smaller in spirit, but in quieter, less noticeable ways. I learned to soften my opinions before sharing them, downplay my accomplishments before anyone else could, and explain my ambitions as though they needed to justify the space they occupied.

No one ever handed me a rulebook.

The expectations were far more subtle than that.

Over time, I simply absorbed the idea that confidence should be modest, leadership should be gentle, and ambition should always have a practical reason behind it. If my dreams didn’t benefit someone else, they somehow felt less worthy of pursuing.

Eventually, I stopped recognizing those habits as choices.

They felt like my personality.

It wasn’t until much later that I realized I hadn’t been practicing humility.

I had been practicing self-erasure.

There’s a difference.

Humility recognizes that our worth isn’t determined by what we accomplish.

Self-erasure convinces us that our accomplishments, our curiosity, and sometimes even our voices should be minimized to make other people comfortable.

Once I recognized that distinction, I began seeing it everywhere.

How many women apologize before asking a question?

How many introduce an idea by saying, “This might be silly…”?

How often do we dismiss our own success as luck before anyone else has the chance to?

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that taking up less space was a virtue.

I believed it too.

For years, I assumed adulthood meant narrowing my life—that eventually I would have to choose one identity and quietly let the others disappear.

Career or family.

Adventure or stability.

Leadership or kindness.

Purpose or love.

What surprised me most is that life never asked me to make those choices.

People did.

Expectations did.

Fear did.

But life itself never insisted I become less.

Instead, it kept inviting me to become more.

I earned a master’s degree after growing up in an environment where higher education wasn’t considered an expected path for someone like me.

I left an abusive marriage, knowing it would cost me the acceptance of people I had spent my entire life trying to make proud.

I packed everything I owned into a car, left my small-town beginnings behind, and rebuilt my life in a place where I knew no one.

Professionally, I reinvented myself across utilities, technology, and defense—industries where women have often had to establish credibility before their expertise is assumed. Along the way, I became a published author, helped launch a digital customer success organization across the Americas, earned recognition for leadership in the defense industry, and built a successful business that allowed me to combine creativity, entrepreneurship, and service.

Outside of work, I traveled farther than the younger version of myself ever imagined possible.

Most importantly, after believing I might never experience a relationship where I could be fully myself, I found a love that never asked me to become less in order to belong.

Looking back, none of those moments feel like separate accomplishments.

They’re evidence.

Evidence that our lives don’t have to follow a single script.

Evidence that reinvention isn’t a sign we’ve failed. Sometimes it’s proof that we’ve finally stopped living according to someone else’s expectations.

The greatest misconception I carried wasn’t that I wasn’t capable.

It was that I needed permission.

Permission to leave.

Permission to learn.

Permission to lead.

Permission to begin again.

Permission to pursue work that challenged me.

Permission to build a life that looked different from the one I had inherited.

For years, I waited for someone else to validate the person I wanted to become.

No promotion gave me that permission.

No degree.

No relationship.

No recognition.

Those milestones affirmed my journey, but they didn’t begin it.

The turning point came much earlier.

It came the moment I stopped believing that becoming more of myself somehow meant becoming less worthy of love, belonging, or respect.

I still believe in kindness.

I still believe in humility.

I still believe in making room for other people.

But I’ve learned those things don’t require me to disappear.

If anything, they ask me to show up more honestly.

I think many women know what it feels like to wait.

To wait until they’re more qualified.

More confident.

More certain.

More acceptable.

To wait until someone notices their potential and gives them permission to use it.

But perhaps permission was never ours to receive.

Perhaps it was ours to claim.

The most meaningful life I’ve built didn’t begin when everything became clear.

It began when I stopped asking whether I was allowed to become the woman I already knew I could be.

Maybe that’s the invitation for all of us.

Not to become someone new.

But to stop waiting for permission to become fully ourselves.

Veronica Cooper is an organizational leadership expert, writer, business owner, and chef based in Orlando, Florida. She holds a master’s degree in Organizational Leadership and has built a career leading organizational transformation across the utilities, technology, and defense industries while also channeling her passion for food into entrepreneurship as a chef and business owner. Cooper writes about identity, resilience, ambition, and the expectations women inherit, blending strategic insight with deeply personal reflection.

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