Let Go Of The Need For Approval.

 Hi everyone! Welcome to HAPPY DAYS podcast! I am Kelly Ward - Your host. 

I hope you are having a beautiful week! So my week has been good so far, it is a lovely, sunny day outside and I am really excited to be spending time with you today. 

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So today I wanted to speak about seeking approval from others. I am pretty sure that we are all guilty of this at some point in our lives. From my own experience, because I have had a low self esteem and did not think I was good enough, I would seek approval from others in order to get that validation I needed to boost myself up, instead of looking in ward and doing that for myself. Everything in life teaches us something, if you are in a bad relationship right now, you are given the opportunity to be a student to learn how to have a better relationship, if you are feeling unfulfilled in your life, life has presented you with the opportunity to find what makes you happy in life, to really sit with your thoughts and go on a journey towards self discovery. No matter what age you are, you can start over as many times as you want. Be open to the lessons life has to offer us. I decided to discuss seeking approval from others because it is something we all need to be aware of, so that we can stop doing it. 

So what does seeking approval mean?

Well...

Firstly validation is the desire we have for the approval from others and because human beings are naturally social beings, we tend to thrive well in a community and therefore we have a strong desire to fit in, please others and we have strong sense to belong in that community and also seek validation from it. When we don't receive the approval we are looking for, we turn towards self-criticism and we base our worth off what someone has said to us, instead of practicing more self-compassion. It is so important to really know your own worth, because if you don't - you will constantly accept mediocre treatment from others, instead of loving yourself enough in order to understand what you need and what makes you happy. Finally now, at the age of 26, I am on a journey towards self-love and figuring out what I deserve, no matter if it doesn't agree with other people. For such a long time, I was struggling with the thought of 'what will people think of me', 'I am going to be judged harshly and spoken about in a negative light' and 'should I rather accept the treatment I am receiving now because I probably deserve it' and it has taken some time to get over that and replace those negative thoughts with more positive affirmations in order to really recognise what I deserve and what is going to make me happy. When you decide to step outside of the mould people place you in, you will be judged, because people are now uncomfortable, they don't want to see you doing what does not feel right for them, so you will annoy certain people, there is nothing you can do about it. When you realise that you can only control your own thoughts and behaviours in life, you become free and you no longer want to subject yourself to treatment that makes you unhappy. I am so grateful I have someone like my dad to look up to, who is such a positive, happy person and someone who doesn't seek validation from anyone because he knows who he is and he is secure in himself enough to not care what people think. So having a role model like that has definitely played a role in my journey now towards building myself up and loving myself enough to know what I deserve. 

Trust me, it is hard to be honest with yourself and to figure out what is not working anymore in your life and what has to change. It is tough to really be honest and face the reality, however on the other side of fear is growth. So you need to really ask yourself - which do you want? The pain of staying where you are or the pain of growth? When you start to see your worth, you'll stop seeing people who don't. When we aim to please other people, we are seeking approval of self from external sources. It feels good in the moment and may for awhile, because we are not going against the grain, we are not being judged by anyone, we enjoy the pat on the back we get from other people and boosts our confidence for a short period of time. However we are setting ourselves up to live a life we don't really want, but we will fit in to what other people expect of us and some people truly enjoy that feeling, they enjoy fitting in, however if you are listening today, you are not one of those people, because seeking approval from others, basically means you will miss opportunity to be your true self even if it means that other people don't agree with it. 

When the acceptance of others starts to impact how you make decisions about how to spend your time, you will lose the awareness of what is important to you, what drives you and what makes you happy. It is time to start getting in touch with what really matters to you and start to listen to what you really want for your life and then start to align your actions, values, principles and goals. When you live your life in line with what you value, your life becomes much simpler and more effortless and if you are surrounded by people whose values you don't agree with, start taking the steps to let go of those people. Instead of making decisions based on what others will want from you, start making decisions based on what is right for you. When you make conscious choices about how to spend your time and when you are committed to doing what is valuable to you, you are then able to create your own life. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need to be or even appear constantly busy in order to be successful. Rather look at success as a measure of doing what matters to you. When I realized that for myself, my perception changed, because sometimes we also get caught up in the idea of seeking approval from others by looking busy all the time, however why not focus on doing what makes you happy and focus on that. Sometimes we also tend to avoid things that are important to us because we fear others won't approve of it. So get out of the box that people have placed you in and be free to be yourself. 

Say goodbye to the need for approval from other people. This all starts with building the strength to go with what feels right for you, when you start practicing this, you will no longer seek validation from other people. Start to become more self-aware and pay attention to the things in your life that make you happy and what you truly enjoy doing. Live now, be happy and stay true to yourself always. 

I hope this episode has inspired you and helped you realise that it is not worth your own mental health and inner peace to maintain the expectations others may have of you. You are your own person, with your own goals and dreams and you have your own life to figure out what makes you happy. So when you find yourself wanting approval from others, take a moment, become aware of it and then look to yourself for the validation you need. 

I wish you an amazing week ahead and thank you for hanging out with me, for those of you who are new to HAPPY DAYS, I release brand new episodes every Wednesday!! Feel free to also subscribe to my YouTube channel - I have added the link in the episode bio :)

I love you.

Goodbye :)