Approval Seeking Behavior Holding You Back? Do This Instead

We all need approval to one extent or another. But there’s a huge difference between choosing tactical compromises for the sake of keeping the peace and a toxic need for validation. It’s called approval seeking behavior.

You don’t have to seek far to notice this behavior in yourself and others. A simple mindful observation of daily life situations can tell you a lot about your approval seeking tendencies.

For example, many times, when I’m in line at coffee shops, I hear people ask the barista:

“Can I get a medium latte”?
“Can I get a bagel with cream cheese”?
“Can I get a peanut butter-chocolate milkshake”?

These two words they use “CAN I”, is nothing but approval seeking behavior.

They’re not doing it on purpose or something, it’s just the way they’re programmed.

Because they are conditioned to need approval, they can’t just say confidently and shamelessly –

“I WOULD LIKE a medium latte please.”
“I WILL HAVE a bagel with cream cheese please.”

While it’s not a terrible thing to ask the person who provides service for what you need, but sometimes these tiny approval seeking demeanors can indicate a deeper pattern going on underneath the surface.

They’re subconsciously afraid that if they assert themselves without asking for permission or sounding a bit apologetic, they’ll make the barista feel uncomfortable.

But what they don’t know is that they have a right to do it. They have a right to communicate their needs directly. And that doesn’t make them rude or insensitive.

And besides – simple things like that shouldn’t make people feel uneasy.
And if they do – then it’s their responsibility to check in with themselves why they get hurt by non-rude directness.

This is just one approval seeking example. This common behavior takes over almost every part of our lives.

The Root Cause of The Need For Approval

Usually, when we act from a state of fear, then this behavior is wrong for us, because it’s failing to promote our growth.

If you’re trying to get the approval to sustain your ego, then you might be familiar with these situations. You:

Tell people what they want to hear.
Finding creative ways to impress others.
Worrying constantly about what others think of you.
Fret criticism – you break down easily from something someone says.
Holding yourself back from expressing your authentic self.
Heck, you sometimes don’t even know what is your authentic self and who you are because you’re lacking a sense of self.

It’s not your fault, really. We grew up to be approval seeking culture in order to avoid making others feel uncomfortable.

Letting go of this unhealthy behavior of needing approval feels like an impossible task. From the day you were born, you learned the wrong message: that your value and worth are dependent on others.

For instance, we needed to receive praise from our parents, “I’m proud of you for your grades.” We wanted so badly to be validated by our caretakers that we tried to present behaviors that would please them.

Usually, you received their approval when you achieved things, rather than because you existed.

In other cases, we’re so afraid that others might get angry with us. Many of us grew up in an unhealthy environment where our needs went unmet. Some of us got yelled at pretty often or were ridiculed for being ourselves.

This behavioral programming was downloaded into our system without us knowing it. Consequently, we ended up embracing false thoughts such as –

“I need others to approve me so that I can feel good about myself.”
“I need to have successes in life to be approved.”
“If others like me, then I am worth something.”

But these paradigms are wrong at their core. You ARE good enough just by being you, without forcing a behavior that doesn’t belong to you.

You don’t need to prove yourself to anyone or seek others’ validation to feel like you’re somebody. In addition, you don’t need others’ approval to feel good about yourself. In fact, you can become the sole authority for approving yourself.

The Reasons You Should Not Seek Approval From Outside of Yourself

If you continue chasing after these instant approval gratifications that are nothing but short-term ego boosts, you’d be a very unhappy person.

Why? Because just like any addiction, you always need more of it and you can’t live without it. The same goes for the need for approval.

The goal is that you reach such a strong internal state, that you become so rooted in your values that nothing or no one can shake you.

As you become that strong, empowered person you’ve always wanted to be, you’d go after your desires with much more ease. You’d step out of your comfort zone and allow yourself to grab opportunities as they come.

But as an approval junkie, you don’t get to do all that.

By giving your power away to others, you avoid taking chances out of worrying others will judge you, laugh at you, or dislike you.

You remain stuck in your comfort zone, not moving an inch, not putting yourself out there to explore new growth opportunities, just to not irritate anyone. You don’t dare to take risks that may bring a disapproving state or rank low on the social status meter.

The approval seeking behavior may cause you to fear failing so much that you give up before you start.

But worse of all – you miss your chance to learn to validate yourself.

You’re not effective as you can be and you avoid doing things that are important to you, just so you can “win” some points among your peers.

And the funny thing is – you get less respect when you walk down that path. You lose the respect you crave from yourself and others, which is a paradox because that was the initial reason you started this approval seeking behavior in the first place.

Find The Right Balance

I’m not here to put you down in any way. I used to be a people pleaser myself until I became so drained by my own approval seeking personality.

It’s not easy to change such a deeply seated defense mechanism like that. That’s what approval seeking is, eventually – a defense mechanism.

It’s an unconscious behavior you chose back then to protect yourself.

Protect yourself from what?
Mainly from rejection and abandonment.

In the end, we all want to belong and be an integral part of the tribe. No one wants to be an outcast or left behind.

But at the same time, we can’t just give up on ourselves and betray who we are, what we stand for, and our authenticity.

The answer is to find the balance between our need to belong to our need for self-expression and freedom.

So how to stop the automated validation seeking behavior? Here are a few tips that I personally find very helpful.

Stop Seeking Validation To Fill The Void

Want to feel happier? Fulfilled? Empowered?

Then learn how to approve of yourself, even when others don’t provide you that.

Start paying attention to the small approval seeking habits of yours

“Can I try these on?” (Asking the worker at your favorite store to try on some clothes)

“Is it OK if I ask you where you got this from”? (Just ask it if YOU feel comfortable
with your question)

“Would it be OK with you if I ___ (fill in the blank)

Pay attention to these little, very easy to miss habitual behaviors. And then, correct yourself. Allow yourself to be less apologetic, after all, you’re not hurting anyone.

Yes, you’ll feel the anxiety raises as you start behaving in a way that contradicts your approval seeking personality. Let the fear be present and do it anyway.

Do it more and more, and you’ll physically rewire your neural connections through new experiences. In the end, you’ll see that it wasn’t so bad.

You Have a Right to Take Up Space

When you were a child, you may have got the messages that you were too much – too loud, too joyful, too energetic, too straightforward.

So your protective side of the brain, the limbic system, took all these statements and tried to find a “fight, flight or freeze” solution to protect yourself from harm and avoid these commandments.

So what did you do, unconsciously? In your attempts to seek approval, you made yourself appear small

You shrank down parts of yourself and tried to fit the image of what others said you should be.

But see, making yourself smaller never worked. Our authentic selves force their way to the surface no matter how much we repress them.

That’s probably why you’re reading this post because you are not interested that the approval seeking behavior will continue to be a part of your identity.

So whenever you feel that you need to hide parts of yourself to not appear threatening to others, just remind yourself of this truth:

“I have the right to take up space. God created me to thrive and shine, and I wasn’t born into this world to be afraid of people. I was put in this world to share my gifts. Therefore, it’s my natural right to express who I am”.

Shift Your Approval Seeking Behavior

Yes, you will experience difficulties along the way because you carry an enormous internal resistance.t.

You might feel anxious being yourself, but you will have to teach yourself to tolerate this fear over people’s disapproval of you and become comfortable with it.

If you want to speed up your growth process, then I’ve recorded a unique meditation that is designed for this purpose – to help you put behind approval seeking behavior.

Get instant access now and start making decisions based on what’s right for you, instead of what is right for others.

If you want to help yourself get out of the seeking validation loop, and start being bold, daring, and real with others (without being a jerk obviously), then check out the confidence booster formula I created.

Put yourself first, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Don’t restrict your gifts and dim your light. Don’t repress your spirit. You have the right to show the world who you are.