Do you want to stop seeking the approval/validation of others?
Don’t beat yourself up! You’re not the only one feeling this way!
Discover how you can set yourself FREE from those feelings immediately! 🙂
Why do I seek approval from others?
I receive this question very often in my emails…
Down the line, we all want to be loved for who we truly are, right?
There’s no better feeling!
And we actually consider the other being “the mirror” of the way we want to feel.
We think that THEY are the ones that can make us feel good about ourselves, that can love ourselves, but here’s the thing that I want to share with you…
YOU are the one that you need your approval of!
Are you following? 🙂
You remember that I said that we want OTHERS to give us their approval and recognition?
But, why would you let your emotional life and give your power away to someone else?
Someone that let’s face it, don’t know how to fulfill your needs as much as you do! 🙂
The example of the career path…
Let me give you an example to make things clearer.
Let’s imagine that you want to go back to study something that you always wanted.
So that you can do a job that you always wanted to do.
You want approval from your friends and family, you want them to think that your idea is great and that they support you!
You might find yourself asking: Will they agree? What will they say? Are they going to tell me that I’m exaggerating?
But here’s the thing… What do YOU think of this career path?
Do you agree with yourself? What do YOU say about it? Are you saying that you are exaggerating?
The way YOU LOOK at it matters the most!
In my opinion, when we seek the approval of others, it’s because we didn’t take the time to ask yourself what we think of it.
You want the approval of others to see how hard you are working but are YOU seeing how hard you are working?
Do not let others have that power over you and over your emotional life.
No one is deciding the way you are going to feel but YOU ARE.
Why do I need people’s validation?
We want their validation on topics that we are not validating for ourselves in the first place.
When you think about it, if someone will tell you that they don’t like your hair and you love your hair, you couldn’t care less about their opinion (most of the time!).
The problem is that we want people’s validation of things that we aren’t sure ourselves.
How to stop seeking the approval of others…
Step 1: Become super self-aware!
The first thing to do is to be more SELF-AWARE.
You need to pay attention to the thing you want the approval of others.
Is it something about your professional life? Your personal life?
Formulate a complete sentence such as “I want this person to see that I’m working hard and to be proud of me”.
Step 2: What do YOU think?
Ask yourself what do YOU think about it?
For the thought “I want this person to see that I’m working hard and to be proud of me”, I want you to ask yourself: do YOU see that you are working hard? Are YOU proud of yourself?
Step 3: YOU, only YOU can make you feel a certain way!
Take the time to be aware of what you want OTHERS to feel towards you.
Then, feel empowered by the fact that only YOU and YOURSELF can make you feel a certain way!
Now, go back to the sentence: “I want this person to see that I’m working hard and to be proud of me”, understand what belief is causing you to think this way.
Ask yourself “why” questions: Why is it important to work hard? What is happening when someone is proud of you?
Question yourself if it’s always true or if it’s maybe an idea that you have of the reality?
We all have a need for approval, but you don’t have to live from it!
Step 4: Believe a bridge thought!
Create a “bridge thought”, a thought that you can believe and that is serving you.
For example: “I’m working hard, I’m giving my best” and also “I’m proud of myself and don’t need other people’s approval because I have my own”.
Step 5: Give yourself your own approval!
Understand that YOU and only YOU can make you feel a certain way.
You know when someone wants to lose weight, they lost weight and no matter how many people are telling them “You lost weight, amazing!” it doesn’t matter until the moment the person who lost weight really realize it!
So, take the time to ask YOURSELF to give your own approval.
Your self-validation is all that you need! 🙂
What makes sense is that we all want to be feeling validated, I totally get you!
Step 6: What do you have control over?
Understand that we DO NOT have control over other people’s behavior, thoughts, and feelings.
No matter what we are doing in our life, we are doing it because of the way WE THINK.
This means that no matter what we want from other people, it won’t ever really say something about us but about THEM.
So, when you think about it, why do you want them to approve something about yourself that isn’t really about YOURSELF actually?
For example, you want this person to see how much weight you lost.
But maybe this person isn’t paying too much attention to weight in general because they are not too concerned about that (which as you can see, shows how the way they feel related to weight says a lot about THEM, not YOU).
Them not seeing how much you lost weight or not has nothing to do with YOU!
This is where the most important thing is to give approval to yourself, from yourself! 🙂
This last step of the process is essential because you need to understand how much you have NO CONTROL over others when you seek approval.
No need to seek the approval of others anymore, with these 6 steps, you’re going to give it to YOURSELF!
This is how to validate yourself.
How to stop seeking validation from others…
This has a lot to do with stopping to seek people’s approval, but I wanted to add two small updates that will be very helpful…
Why do you need people’s validation?
It is SO essential to ask yourself the reason why you’re seeking people’s validation when you do so.
Understanding why you feel like you need other people’s approval will already be super helpful!
Let’s look at an example: 6 years ago, when I’ve decided to quit being an employee and start being an entrepreneur.
I really wanted people to approve of my new lifestyle which was working from home and being my own boss (especially my dad!).
I asked myself: What do I think about quitting being an employee and starting to be an entrepreneur?
When I took the time to really think about it, I realized it was because I had the thoughts, the beliefs that I thought so many times that were: “To be loved, I need to have an ordinary job and an ordinary life.” Or “People need to understand what job I have, what I’m doing with my life.”
When realizing this, I saw that it wasn’t necessarily the truth! And so, I didn’t have to believe that!
When you question your “why”, your beliefs that are hiding behind wanting other people’s approval, you can really set yourself free.
You’re not afraid of being unloved or rejected because it isn’t what is really happening! 🙂
I know that we try to seeking validation in relationships too, but you have control over that!
Discover that seeking validation quotes!
Accept 120% of what you are and what you want!
The moment that you understood your “why” behind wanting other people’s approval, take a minute to realize what you truly want.
Considering the example of before, I know that what I wanted was to be an entrepreneur.
Knowing and understanding why I wanted people to approve of this choice really helped me out!
I’ve then decided to not only accept that this is what I wanted but to embrace it also!
When you’ll be at the end of your life, you don’t want to feel and think like you’ve lived your life for others.
You want to live your life for YOURSELF and to do exactly what you want to do.
Trust yourself for your choices and decisions, YOU know what’s good for you! 🙂
Now, I don’t need other people’s approval for being an entrepreneur.
I’m totally convinced that this is what I want!
And I let people think whatever they want! 🙂
I let them be just like I let myself be and do whatever I want! 🙂
And this helps a lot when it comes to learning how to stop seeking validation from others.
What should we seek in life?
This is a great question! 🙂
You need to seek CONNECTIONS in life.
The first connection to seek is the one with yourself. Who are you? Are you a good friend to yourself? Do you like your own company?
You need to feel comfortable with yourself and with who you are (this needs to start by getting to know yourself better and by looking at what you find with compassion and curiosity).
Then, you will feel amazing seeking connections with others!
Friends, families, strangers… You will LOVE open your mind to other ways of thinking! It will only enrich you and your life! 🙂
Then, you need to seek connections with the things you’re doing.
What are your hobbies? What are you doing when you have some free time?
About what topic are you happy to talk about an hour on, for example?
What do you like reading?
How do you develop self esteem?
Self-esteem is really the reputation to yourself.
It’s how much you appreciate yourself.
Most of the time, we may find ourselves appreciating others more than ourselves! 🙂
But we are definitely as good as others, so why can’t we do it for ourselves?
Because we never take the time to do it! 🙂
Discover how you can develop self-worth and become more authentic.
Your life will totally CHANGE! 🙂
You will feel amazing being who you truly are and by being more authentic, you’re going to free yourself! Both are amazing feelings! 😉
What is the key to happiness?
The key to happiness is not to be all the time happy, actually.
It’s about at first, understand that half of the time, you’re going to feel negative emotions and you can learn how to deal with them.
Then, it’s about knowing who you truly are and what makes you happy!
Also, I truly believe that building your self-confidence and feel like you have your own back will increase your happiness.
How to do that?
By listening to my podcast, The Get Confident, Get Happy Podcast!
Click on the image too and start listening to 1,2 or more episodes to become your boldest self starting TODAY!
It’s a skill that ANYONE can develop! 🙂
Ask yourself: What would your life look like, the moment that you will be more self-confident?
To sum up!
As you can see, when you really think about it, you do NOT need the approval of others.
The one you need is your OWN.
So next time, ask yourself: What do I, MYSELF, think about it? What do I, MYSELF, really need and want?
And then, give it to yourself! 🙂
Do NOT let others have this power over you!
YOU have the power with the right thought to give you your own approval, the only one that WILL TRULY MATTERS. 🙂
