Points covered in this post:
- How seeking approval from others holds us back
- Why we seek approval and validation from others
- How to let go of your need for approval and acceptance from others
Please note that this post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.
How Seeking Approval From Others Holds Us Back
I want people’s approval. I would be lying if I said I didn’t want their approval or acceptance of me, and that I didn’t care about what others think.
We all want people to like and accept us, to validate us and our worth, and while it’s healthy to a degree to have a need for approval, it becomes a slippery slope when we our sole aim is to be accepted by others.
Simply put, seeking approval from others relinquishes our freedom from making the choices we really want to make.
Growing up, I thought I wanted to be a doctor. At first, it was a childhood dream through middle and high school. I shadowed all kinds of physicians for over a thousand hours from high school and into college. In my small hometown, it was a well-known fact that I wanted to attend medical school one day. But as I watched countless surgeries, sat in on patient appointments, and learned the business side to running a practice, I knew deep down it wasn’t what I wanted.
First off, I have a super sensitive stomach and watching surgeries made me nauseous. I hated being stuck in windowless, sterile rooms for hours on end. Watching people receive horrible news broke my heart again and again. I didn’t want to attend medical school and then residency for that many years. And most of all, I knew I wouldn’t be happy being a doctor. But that didn’t stop me from taking all the intense science courses through college. Nor did it stop me from taking the MCAT. Or from working in a doctor’s office. At one point, I was accepted to medical school, but I put off going.
So why did I go to all this trouble for so many years to keep up the ruse that I was indeed going to become a doctor? The answer was simple: I felt I would be letting everyone down. I wanted to please everyone I had told growing up that I was going to become a doctor one day. Becoming a doctor had become such a part of my identity, and not becoming a doctor would mean rejection from everyone (in my mind, of course).
When I changed gears and finally told my family it wasn’t what I wanted, they were disappointed to say the least. But inside I felt a thousand times lighter, freer, and I felt like I finally had control over my own life and decisions. My horizons and outlook suddenly brightened, and I was actually optimistic for my future.
One of my favorite quotes perfectly sums up my point here:
“Relinquish your need for approval. There is great freedom in that choice.”
How much freer, lighter, and happier would you be if you made the choices based on what you wanted to do, without the burden of seeking everyone’s validation for those choices? Of course, it’s one thing to say what you could do. It’s another thing to actually go about doing it. But why is approval from others so important to us in the first place?
Why We Seek Approval and Validation from Others
Every human has several basic needs that need to be met. Food, water, and air are some of these. Once these physical needs are met and life can be sustained, then our emotional needs follow. Meeting our emotional needs is the basic driver behind everything we do. Finding fulfillment in our jobs, finding love with another person, going to school, trying to find a work/life balance in the chaos everyday are all examples of how we try to meet our emotional needs.
Amongst all those activities though is another, even stronger motivation that drives our behavior: the need for validation. All humans have the inherent desire to feel secure and safe, and our behaviors revolve around attaining this emotional security. Having this emotional security, however, is where our need for approval comes from.
On a deeper, innate level, having approval and validation from others makes us feel secure with ourselves. Having this security about ourselves is a good thing. It helps us build our self-esteem and confidence, and it gives us the support we need to accomplish our goals. Having approval, love, and acceptance from others is one of the most basic forces for our happiness and contentment. However, we don’t need approval from everyone, and often when we come up against someone that blatantly refuses to accept/approve us or what we do, we’re intrinsically triggered with a desire to win them over and please them.
When we don’t receive approval or validation from others, our feelings of security can be obliterated within seconds. It undermines how we see ourselves, weakens our confidence, and makes us question our personal worth. As if that’s not enough, seeking approval from others can become an addictive habit.
As I mentioned earlier, meeting our emotional needs and garnering approval from others is a basic human need that must be met. Whether it’s your inner circle of friends, your family, or your significant other, it’s important to have your emotional needs met. However, you don’t actually need to seek approval or validation from everyone you meet or know. Doing so will lead to a long, endless road of dashed hopes and dreams, internal suffering, and a life not fulfilled. So how do you let go of your need for approval? How do you break away from your need for acceptance? Relinquish your need from approval and experience your life the way you want with these 5 tips.
How to Let Go of Your Need for Approval and Acceptance From Others
1. Accept yourself as you are. Meet your own emotional needs so that you feel strong enough to stand on your own and accept yourself, regardless of what others think of you. If you can accept yourself, you’ll no longer need to look to others to feel good about who you are, or others’ validation for your choices. Start by keeping a journal where you acknowledge what you like about yourself, or what you’ve accomplished. Every day, jot down a few notes about what you did today that made you proud, what you learned, what insights you garnered, or how you stayed true to your values.
2. Stop seeking approval from others for what you say, do, or feel. Practice letting go of acceptance or approval from others for your choices. When you let someone know how you feel, don’t apologize for feeling that way. You don’t need to apologize for how you feel, nor do you need them to accept what you feel or think. Take note of how you communicate and interact with others. When you ask or tell them something, are you wanting them to tell you that what you’re saying is “ok?” Tell yourself instead that what you’re doing is ok, that you made the right choice for you, and that you don’t need them to tell you everything is ok.
3. Be true to yourself. No one should live their life according to others’ expectations of them. Is life really worth living if you have to pretend to be something you’re not? Be true to yourself and the person you are by doing what you want to do, not what others want you to do. If you constantly make decisions based on what other people think and feel about you, you’ll never feel like you’re “good enough,” and you’ll only become more and more dissatisfied with your life. Be who you are and stick to what you value. Sure, some people may not like it or it may offend them, but you’ll gain their respect, which is far more important than them liking or validating you.
4. Remove distractions and focus on what matters in your life. Remove all the unnecessary distractions from your life: your insecurities, approval from others, acceptance from those you know, etc. Focus on what matters most to you when your thoughts begin to drift towards seeking approval. Are you close to graduating from college? Are you wanting to start a family soon? Are you wanting to travel abroad? Are you looking to make a career change? Write down your goals and dreams, and remind yourself of them as these distractions arise. Focus solely on what matters to you, not what matters to others.
5. Know that it’s ok to be rejected. Being rejected is a fact of life, and it happens to all of us countless times throughout our lifespan. Being disapproved of is a form of feedback. It’s someone telling you that they weren’t happy with what you said or did. While feedback can be helpful in showing us what areas we need to improve upon, receiving judgmental feedback hurts. But rather than trying to change who you are to please someone who doesn’t approve of you, practice accepting the rejection and moving on. Not everyone is going to like you, and that’s ok. It’s normal. Don’t waste your time on the people that don’t appreciate you to begin with, but instead make time for the ones that do know and appreciate you for the way you are.
