How To Overcome Approval-Seeking Addiction
What’s wrong with wanting to please others? In principle, wanting to please is not a bad thing, quite the opposite. However, it is quite another thing to need the approval of others for everything.
Seeking approval from others is only a real problem when you feel that approval is what keeps you going. First of all, because you need to have the support of others, you are dependent on them, and this causes you to lose self-esteem and self-confidence.
Another problem with constantly seeking approval is that it leaves you vulnerable to being manipulated by others. When others discover that you are eager to please, they settle down, because they know you will do anything to make things happen.
Over time, people who constantly seek the approval of others enter a vicious circle that is difficult to break out of. Not only because they get used to someone validating their decisions, but also because others will push, and they act knowing they’ll need their opinions. The following advice will be very helpful for you who are going through this, to overcome this addiction, gain confidence, security, and start making two decisions of your own.
Tips to fight the relentless search for approval
1 – Say what you think
It’s not easy to say what you think. While there are times when you need to be cautious, there are other times when you have to say your opinion. But you need to practice. Start by talking to yourself, acknowledging these thoughts, seeing that you have an opinion, even if those opinions are not what others like.
Practice the way of saying what you think without offending, but respecting yourself, respecting your ideologies and your personal aspirations. Don’t let the desire to please force you to think about others before you even think about yourself.
You can please others without betraying yourself. If you don’t think and don’t say what you think, the others will have all the power over you…
2 – Please yourself
Constantly seeking the approval of others means always being afraid that others are forming a bad opinion of you. This makes you feel vulnerable and a victim of yourself, as you always wonder if others are happy with you or not. It takes away the fun, creativity, kindness and spontaneity of life.
From time to time you also have to please and be proud of yourself, even though not everyone approves of your desires and aspirations. This is not being selfish, but the opposite. A person who is satisfied with himself and feels good is much more useful to others because he is happier and has more will to live.
3 – Remember that no matter what happens, you will always have people who love you
Seeking approval turns out to be an attempt to gain and maintain a sense of control. If we can make people “happy” by being what we imagine they want us to be, then we won’t be scorned or abandoned.
However, you cannot control everyone’s thinking, nor can you please everyone. No matter what you do, there will always be someone who disapproves or doesn’t understand your decision. Nobody has a green ticket that everybody likes, and even if they did, there will always be those who prefer a blue or yellow ticket.
4 – Focus on what’s right and being yourself
A group’s mindset can force us to do what they think we should do, but that’s not always right. In order not to go against the grain, many choose to satisfy the herd, even though it seems incorrect.
This makes you enter into a dynamic in which you become alienated from others, lose your personality and your decision-making ability. Get rid of it, focus on what you think is right, analyze your philosophy, your goals and be yourself. If you don’t like something or some people, why do you want to please them? What do you gain from being part of such a group?
5 – Don’t let others label you
People who are so concerned about the approval of others let them label them at one extreme or the other. However, most people do not make decisions and judge others simply because they do not approve of or understand their ways of doing things, or because they are not following the group model.
Even when you share your opinion, the fact that you do what you believe is right does not make you label yourself negatively, nor does it make others lose their affection for you. Quite the contrary, being yourself is the best way to earn respect from others. And if people label you, try to act so that this label is within a category that interests you.
