In today’s article you’re going to learn everything you need to know about how to stop seeking approval from others.
When you are a baby and you take your first steps, the people around you cheer and clap and give you validation. You have done something well. However, in your life as an adult, you don’t need that validation.
If you do, then you need to look at your self-esteem levels because if you rely on others to validate you, you are going about it all the wrong way.
It makes you weak. It makes you unhappy and it makes you feel weaker every time you don’t get that validation.
Can’t you see the hole that you are digging for yourself?
How To Stop Seeking Approval From Others
Peter was always looking for approval. He needed it because he didn’t have faith in himself. After difficult relationships, he found himself questioning his life to such an extent that he needed other people to approve of what he did. He was always unhappy.
These are the kind of questions he found himself asking others:
- Was that a nice evening?
- Did you enjoy yourself?
- Did I get you the right gift?
It took a long while for Peter to realize what he was doing. He was making up for his own personal shortfall by getting other people to praise him.
That was what he saw as a boost, but when I explained to him how false that was, it took him a while to realize how true that was.
What happened when people didn’t validate him? What happened when he did things that people didn’t approve of?
He thought about it for a moment and then sadly admitted that he had made his life about what other people thought because he couldn’t face the failure that he saw himself as.
There are many people who feel that way and they need to get back to their roots and find out what they want to do with their lives instead of perpetuating this awful habit. All it did was make them feel good for a few minutes and then they were needy again.
I explained all of this to Peter and asked him to go through a whole day with a happy heart greeting people with a smile but not asking for their approval.
SEE ALSO: How To Stop An Argument In Order To Prevent Emotional Damage
His subconscious mind saw that as being his response to life and instantly kicked in when something happened, but he had to stem this habit.
So, I gave him another habit to hold onto when this happened. Instead of asking someone else’s approval for something he had done, I taught him to approve of himself.
Instead of begging for other people to approve, I taught him to treat himself to something nice when he approved of something he did.
It’s easy when you change a habit but be aware that you need to keep it up for about 66 days before it becomes a habit (1).
If you act like someone who can’t survive without other people’s approval, you become someone who can’t survive without other people’s approval, just like Peter had become.
When he changed the habit and started to pat himself on the back for what he had done, he began to attract more positive people into his life and didn’t wake up each morning dreading another day.
He found the incentive to do well, because he liked the feeling of doing well. It didn’t matter if others approved or not.
The feeling inside him grew into a self-liking and when you like yourself, you gain friendships that are worth having and respect from people around you.
What’s that got to do with motivation and happiness? Well, people try so hard to motivate themselves when all they have to do is please that one person that matters the most – themselves.
The way that you are dictates what happens to you in your life. Poor men who always give the impression they are the underdogs remain the underdogs because they don’t know how to be anything else.
People mold themselves to roles and that’s where they go wrong.
If you mold yourself to the role you want in life, then you will become that person and everything that you do will be geared toward becoming that person.
You won’t have problems because all of your mental energies attract energies on a similar level.
Happiness comes from accepting who you are and knowing where you are going to go in life without having to lean on others or obey what they feel is best for you.
Stop lying down and letting people wipe their feet on you. Effectively, that’s what you are doing when you depend on others for their approval.
It’s up to them how dirty the doormat gets and sometimes when they don’t approve of you, that mat can get pretty grubby.
However, if you use the gage that you need to approve of yourself, you don’t have to worry about being a doormat anymore and being dependent upon the grace of others to make you feel validated.
SEE ALSO: How To Declutter Your Mind: 15 Practical Hacks To Free Up Mental Space
For the exercise, I would suggest that you write down the things that you want to do tomorrow. Make the list doable and then just do it, but make sure that you have equal amounts of work, rest and play.
You are entitled to all of these. The work could be the work that you do every day to pay your bills.
The rest could be breaks when things get tough and the play could be rewarding yourself because you are worth it. You don’t need to be approved of by others.
Imagine if Bill Gates had taken great stock of other people’s opinions. The first bank manager he asked for backing from actually refused him, but it didn’t make him lie down and become the banker’s doormat.
Believe in what you do and don’t ask for other people’s approval. Approve of yourself and start to liberate yourself from being a victim (2) of the way other people decide to treat you.
Thank you for reading this article about how to stop seeking approval from others and I really hope that you take action my advice.
I wish you good luck and I hope its contents have been a good help to you.
