Stop Waiting for Permission to Grow: Why Self-Ownership Is Your Career Superpower
Nobody is coming to save your career. Read that again.
I spent years watching talented engineers wait for growth plans that never materialized and feedback that never came. They'd sit in their annual reviews, disappointed yet again that nobody had mapped out their future.
Here's the hard pill to swallow that most won't tell you: you don't need a freaking great logo in your CV or to work with Simon Sinek to succeed in your career. You just need to take extreme ownership of your journey. Your growth.
Let's unpack it.
The Permission Trap (That's Keeping You Stuck)
Let me paint a familiar picture.
You're six months into a new role. The initial excitement has worn off. You're doing good work, but feeling... stuck. Your manager seems perpetually busy. Your 1:1s get canceled.
But when they do happen, they're filled with project updates rather than career conversations.
You start to wonder: When will someone tell me how to level up? When will they notice I'm ready for more? Why isn't anyone creating a growth plan for me?
Sound familiar?
This waiting game is the single biggest career mistake I see talented people make. They're operating like students waiting for a syllabus, when they should be operating like entrepreneurs building their own business.
How the hell do I know that? Because I've been there multiple times. I've made my entire growth dependent to others and blamed them when frustration came. "My boss sucks," "They don't care with my growth,"
The harsh reality? Most managers:
Haven't been trained to develop others
Are overwhelmed with their own deliverables
Don't know your ambitions unless you vocalize them
Aren't thinking about your growth as much as you are
Even the best managers can't possibly map the perfect growth path for you. And the mediocre ones? They're just trying to keep their head above water.
But here's where it gets interesting.
The Career Growth Paradox (My Personal Wake-Up Call)
Let me take you back to 2011.
I was three years into my career, working at a fast-growing tech company in Brazil. I was around my 20s and on fire. Hunger for knowledge (and money; topic for another essay). On paper, things looked good. But I felt invisible. My manager rarely gave feedback. My requests for more challenging projects went nowhere. My annual review was a rushed 15-minute conversation with generic praise.
I went home that night frustrated. I complained to my roommate (another engineer) about my situation.
His response changed everything: "So what are you doing about it besides complaining?"
That question hit me like a bucket of cold water.
I realized I'd been operating with a fundamental misunderstanding of how career growth works. I was waiting to be discovered, waiting for someone to hand me opportunities, waiting for someone else to identify my gaps.
I was treating my career like a class where the teacher hands out the assignments. But in practice, weren't working that way (at all).
The next morning, I made a decision that altered my entire trajectory: I would become extremely accountable for my career, my growth, and my success.
The Self-Ownership Mindset (That Changed Everything)
Looking back across my career journey, I can pinpoint the exact moment things accelerated. It wasn't when I finally found that "perfect" manager or when a company rolled out a fancy career development program.
It was when I stopped asking for permission to grow.
I started approaching my career with radical self-ownership. I viewed myself as my own business - "Me, Inc." - with my manager as just one resource among many, not the gatekeeper to my future.
While people (peers, mentors, bosses, friends, family, etc) are important for one's trajectory, I defined that me and only me should take responsibility for my outcomes. My achievements, and my failures. My lessons, and learnings.
This shift changed everything.
I sought out projects nobody asked me to do. I identified skill gaps before anyone pointed them out. I created solutions to problems nobody had assigned me to solve. I studied the careers of people I admired and reverse-engineered their paths.
And a funny thing happened. The more I owned my growth, the more opportunities started coming my way. The more I stopped waiting for permission, the more leaders started seeing me as leadership material.
Within 18 months of this mindset shift, I had jumped two levels and doubled my compensation. Not because someone blessed me with a perfect growth plan, but because I created one myself.
How to Take Radical Ownership of Your Growth (No Permission Required)
Here's how to stop being a passenger in your career and start being the driver:
1. Create Your Own Feedback Loop
Stop waiting for others to tell you where you need to improve.
After every project, every meeting, every interaction, ask yourself:
What went well that I should continue?
What could have gone better?
What will I do differently next time?
The best engineers I've worked with have an almost obsessive self-awareness. They're constantly evaluating their own performance, often more critically than any manager would. Fascinating!!!!
When someone does give you feedback, treat it like gold. Don't get defensive. Don't explain away. Just listen, thank them, and incorporate it.
But don't make yourself dependent of it. Find your way. Learn to introspect.
2. Map Your Own Skills Gap
You need to know where you are and where you want to go.
First, deeply understand the expectations of your current level. Not just what's written in a job description, but what exceptional performance actually looks like.
Then, study the behaviors and outputs of people 1-2 levels above you. What skills do they have that you don't? What problems are they solving that you aren't equipped to tackle yet?
The gap between these two points is your personal development roadmap.
For me, this meant creating a spreadsheet of senior engineering leaders I admired. I listed out their key skills and experiences, then honestly assessed my capabilities against each one.
The gaps became my focus areas.
3. Create Learning Projects Nobody Assigned You
School trained us to complete assignments given by others. Career growth requires creating your own assignments.
Identify a problem your team or company faces. Something that:
Nobody has explicitly tasked anyone with solving
Would deliver real value if addressed
Requires skills you want to develop
Aligns with business priorities
Then, tackle it. Not by asking for permission, but by starting small and showing progress.
Early in my career, I noticed our onboarding process was painful for new engineers. Nobody asked me to fix it. It wasn't my job. But I started documenting pain points, interviewing recent hires, and creating better documentation. What started as a side project eventually became a company-wide initiative I led, giving me visibility with senior leaders I wouldn't have had otherwise.
4. Build Your Personal Board of Directors
Your manager is just one relationship in your professional ecosystem.
Actively cultivate a diverse network of mentors, peers, and advisors who can:
Open doors to opportunities you don't see
Give candid feedback on your blind spots
Provide perspective your manager can't
Share wisdom from their own journey
I've maintained relationships with former managers, peers who moved to different companies, and folks I admired. These relationships have been invaluable. When I faced career crossroads or needed honest feedback, having multiple perspectives helped me make better decisions than relying on a single manager could.
5. Master the Art of Managing Up
Your manager isn't a mind reader. They have their own pressures and priorities.
Develop a reputation as someone who makes their job easier, not harder, by:
Proposing solutions, not just pointing out problems
Coming to 1:1s with an agenda and topics you want to discuss
Providing visibility into your work without requiring constant supervision
Being explicit about your growth goals and how they align with team needs
The best career conversations I've had with my managers started with me saying, "Here's where I think I need to grow, here's my plan for addressing it, and here's how I think you can help." Not "What should I be working on to get promoted?"
The Uncomfortable Truth About Career Growth
Looking back at my journey from junior engineer to Director of Engineering, I see a pattern.
Every significant leap in my career came when I stopped waiting and started doing. When I identified gaps nobody told me to fill. When I solved problems nobody assigned me to solve. When I developed skills nobody told me I needed.
The people who advance fastest aren't the most naturally talented. They're the ones who take radical ownership of their growth.
In a world where companies are cutting back on training budgets and managers are spread thinner than ever, this self-ownership isn't just an advantage – it's a requirement.
Your Career Belongs to You (Not Your Manager)
Let me say something that might sting a little: If your career isn't moving as fast as you want, the problem might be your mindset.
As long as you're waiting for someone else to:
Create your growth plan
Tell you where to improve
Advocate for your promotion
Hand you challenging assignments
You'll be moving at someone else's pace, not your own. Your career doesn't belong to your manager. It doesn't belong to HR. It belongs to you.
The moment you truly internalize this truth is the moment your trajectory will change forever.
The Question That Changes Everything
So here's my challenge to you:
What if, just for the next 90 days, you operated as if you were 100% responsible for your own growth? What if you stopped waiting for permission, stopped making excuses, and started taking radical ownership?
What could you learn? What problems could you solve? What skills could you develop? What opportunities could you create?
The job market doesn't reward those who wait. It rewards those who act.
Your future self is waiting on the other side of your decision to stop asking for permission and start taking ownership.
The choice is yours.
–Raphael