The Power of Permission

NL Post # 21 —The Hardest Part Was Walking Through the Door

Two weeks before I finally went, I had already signed up.

Xtreme Couture MMA here in Las Vegas—Randy Couture’s gym, a place filled with professional fighters and people who have spent years on the mats. I had a free one-week trial sitting there waiting for me, and instead of using it, I spent nearly two weeks creating reasons why now wasn’t the right time.

Some of those reasons sounded pretty convincing.

I hadn’t trained consistently in MMA in about six years. It had been roughly two years since I’d done any real Muay Thai or kickboxing, and just as long since I had sparred. My conditioning wasn’t where I wanted it to be. I had old injuries in the back of my mind. My schedule wasn’t perfect. Maybe I should get a few more workouts in first. Maybe I should get myself into better shape before walking into a room full of people who were already training.

There was always one more reason to wait.

But eventually I had to get curious about what was actually happening.

🔷 Curiosity

Was I really preparing—or was I trying to eliminate every possible uncomfortable feeling before allowing myself to begin?

That question changed something for me.

Because beneath all of the practical excuses was something much simpler: I was nervous. There was anxiety about walking back into that environment after being away for so long. There was insecurity about what I would look like compared with who I used to be. There was fear of reinjury, fear of being behind, and probably a little fear of finding out that I wasn’t the same fighter I remembered.

And the strange thing about fear is that it can make avoidance sound incredibly reasonable.

So instead of trying to argue myself out of it, I did something different.

🔶 Permission

I’ve been developing and experimenting with what I call a permission-based meditation—a practice that gives me space to feel what’s there without immediately letting fear make the decision for me.

I sat down and gave myself space to feel whatever was there without trying to fix it. Then I imagined what it would actually feel like to walk through the gym doors. To train. To move again. To meet people. To feel confident enough to simply be where I was rather than comparing myself with some older version of me.

I wasn’t trying to convince myself that I wouldn’t be nervous.

I was giving myself permission to go while nervous.

When I finished the meditation, I didn’t give myself much time to start negotiating again. I got up and went straight to the gym.

Walking in was probably the hardest part.

But permission created something I couldn’t access from home: opportunity.

Once I was inside, I started introducing myself to people and letting them know I was coming back after being away from consistent training for a few years.

One of the women I approached happened to be a professional fighter.

🔷 Discovery

Then she told me something I wasn’t expecting.

She had recently come back from ankle surgery and some time away herself. Even with all of her experience—even as someone who fights professionally—she told me she had spent three weeks convincing herself to walk back through those same doors.

That conversation stayed with me.

Here I was inside one of the most recognizable MMA gyms in Las Vegas, surrounded by people competing at levels I’m nowhere near, and the person standing in front of me was describing almost the exact same internal battle I had been having with myself.

Different experience.

Different skill level.

Same very human hesitation.

🔷 Reflection

I think we sometimes assume confidence belongs to the people who are already doing the thing.

The fighter walks into the gym without fear. The writer sits down without doubt. The entrepreneur launches without insecurity. The person starting over somehow knows they’re ready before they begin.

But maybe that isn’t how it works.

Maybe confidence isn’t always what gets us through the door.

Sometimes permission does.

Permission to be rusty. Permission to be nervous. Permission to be different from the person you were five years ago. Permission to show up without knowing exactly how it’s going to feel once you get there.

For me, creation that day wasn’t some massive achievement.

I didn’t need to become a fighter again.

I just needed to create one new experience that contradicted the story I had been telling myself for two weeks.

🔶 Creation

I walked through the door.

I trained.

I sparred for the first time in two years.

And I had a good time.

The version of the experience I had been rehearsing in my head was far more intimidating than the experience waiting for me on the other side.

That doesn’t mean every fear is imaginary or that every hesitation should be ignored. Sometimes preparation matters. Sometimes our bodies genuinely need more time. Sometimes waiting is the intelligent decision.

But there’s also a point where preparation quietly turns into permission-seeking.

And sometimes nobody is going to hand you that permission except you.

So maybe the question this week isn’t:

“Am I ready?”

Maybe it’s:

“What am I waiting to feel before I finally give myself permission to begin?”

What happened inside that gym was the Curiosity POD Mindset playing out in real time.

Curiosity helped me question the story I was telling myself. Permission got me through the door. That permission created an opportunity to step back into an environment I had been avoiding and connect with someone I otherwise never would have met. Discovery came through realizing that even a professional fighter could wrestle with many of the same fears and doubts. Reflection helped me understand what the experience meant.

And creation gave me something new to build from.

If you want to explore that mindset more deeply—or better understand how to recognize and implement it in your own life—you can pick up a copy of Curiosity to Creation.

And if reading isn’t really your thing, or you process better by writing things out, I created the 30-Day Curiosity Reset Journal as another way into the same work. It invites you to begin noticing fear-based beliefs, programmed thoughts, and the stories we’ve been handed without ever stopping to ask whether they actually belong to us.

The book, the journal, and the permission-based meditation I’m developing are different tools pointed toward the same idea:

Break the script. Question the story. Reclaim authority over your own life.

There isn’t one correct way to do that.

The right tool is the one that helps you begin.

Until next time—stay curious, Curiosity Creators.

Justin Charles Allman
Author of Curiosity to Creation
Founder of Curiosity Creators

Remember. Reclaim. Create.