Why You Keep Chasing Approval Without Realizing It

Perhaps in conversations you think you're just being polite, considerate, easy to get along with. But what if in subtle ways throughout the day, you're actually doing something very different? You're actually harvesting approval from other people without even realizing it. Welcome to today's episode of Shrink for the Shy Guy. Today, we're going to talk about what I call approval harvesting. And that's the subtle way that we chase approval, manage people's reactions, and ultimately override ourselves. So I'm excited to share this with you because this is something that's often happening beneath the surface. We don't walk into a social environment or a workplace setting and say, I'm here to extract praise and approval from people, right? No, it's actually an unconscious pattern. That's occurring, but it's kind of a reinforcing loop that pulls you further and further from yourself. And it actually explains a lot of those challenges where you walk into a situation, you have a sincere desire to connect with people, and then you leave feeling like it's more of a performance than a connection. Or maybe you want to be real with someone in your personal life, professional life, and then you walk away and you're like, why did I soften that? Why did I not really say what I wanted to say? This actually explains a huge amount of that. So let me share what it is, and you can see how it applies in your life. But let's just take an example, like you're going to a dinner party. And you know, one or two people there, maybe if you're hanging out with that person one-on-one, you feel very relaxed. But all of a sudden, when it's this dinner party environment, there's 5, 6 people you don't know. Something else happens, right? And so if you walk into that environment, instead of feeling relaxed like you're one-on-one with your friend, what do you feel? Well, a lot of people feel a little tense. They maybe notice themselves in the mirror on the way there, like, "How do I look?" And then they get there and there's some sense of like, "Well, we've got to do this somehow better." And if you tune into the tension or pressure inside and you say, "Well, what's going on?" You say, "I don't know. I just, I want it to go well." Right? And isn't that what we always say? I want it to go well. I want the dinner party to go well. I want the date to go well. I want the presentation to go well. And yeah, I feel nervous. I feel tense. I feel uncomfortable because I want it to go well. Right? That's what we're aware of on the surface. But what does going well actually mean? If you think about it in the dinner party situation, what if it were to go well? What does that mean? Well, let's find out. So people are chatting, you're standing there, you got your hors d'oeuvres, looking totally natural, putting by, hanging by the bar, putting out the vibe. And then you, you know, maybe you're gonna share something, you know, tell a story, or you have something to contribute to the conversation, and you start to contribute it. And then you are doing what? You're looking around. And what starts to happen is maybe a part of you inside is tracking how this is all going. Yeah, people are looking at me. They're nodding. That's good. That's good. People laugh. I made that joke, people laughed. That's also very good. Uh-oh, that person's looking down at their plate. That's not good. Wait a minute. The person that laughed, was that just polite? Yeah, probably was. Okay, that was actually not good. Not good. Danger, right? And so we have this little commentator inside who's basically saying, good, good, not good, bad, bad. That was bad. And really what he's tracking, or she, whoever, whatever the gender of that little guy in there, is approval, disapproval, approval, disapproval, right? And it's subtle. It's voice tone, body language, eye contact, and of course what they say as well and how they say it. All of that comes together for us to feel this sense of like we're tracking something and we're basically tracking how is this landing? How is this landing? How am I doing? How am I doing? Am I doing good? Can you relate to this? This is what creates when we're feeling very anxious socially. This is the pattern is running double time. And the same thing if you have performance anxiety, whether it's a work presentation or speaking up in some meeting, the same pattern running. How is this landing? How's this landing? And because we're tracking the approval so much and how am I doing, we start to the content of what I'm saying becomes secondary. I'm not just sharing because I have something fun or interesting or in a workplace setting, maybe valuable to contribute. It's just how is it landing? That's more important than the content. And this is where it starts to get real dicey is we start to mold what we say to make sure that it lands well. Right? So maybe you pre-filter in one of those, you run in that pattern where it's like, well, that could land well, but it couldn't. Let's not say it. Yeah. Nope, nope. That one's probably not going to go well. Don't say that either. Right? You talk yourself out of it in your head or you massage it, position it, calibrate it. You say it in a way that you think people are going to like. You soften. You contort. And in either case, free expression is now off the table. Why? Well, because I'm not allowed to. Why? Because everything I do has to land in that good column and get the approval and not in the bad column. By the way, that's awful. And that's why I use the term approval harvesting, because if you think about harvesting, harvesting just means to collect things. And to accumulate them like you're gathering something. So if I'm picking apples for the summer harvest, I'm choosing the apples off the tree and then putting them in boxes. And I'm paying attention to that because that's what I'm there to do, right? I'm here to pick all these apples for my crop. And I'm going to say, hey, how many boxes do we got? Is that more than last year? Is this a good harvest or a bad harvest? And that's what we're doing. But instead of harvesting apples, we're harvesting signals of approval, little smiles and nods. It's basically like thumbs up and hearts and likes on social media platforms, but in real life. Like, "Eh, is it? Do you like it? Was it good? Is it good?" And it goes deeper than this. By the way, this is— I've been mad-scienting this in my office and sort of coming to a deeper synthesis and thesis around all this, which will be coming coming out in a variety of ways. I'm going to have a new diagnostic you can take to determine your default approval pattern and what you go to under pressure in relationships. And I'm also going to be creating a whole new book around this topic as well. But that's forthcoming. For now, we want to just start to see some of these mechanisms at play, because the deeper thing that I want to highlight in those materials for you is this isn't just about approval and harvesting approval. Because the reason we're harvesting approval is not because we're manipulative or we're trying to force people. It's a survival reflex. Because on some level, I don't feel okay and I need the approval. I need this crop to work out because then I'll feel okay. I feel a sense of relief. Have you ever had that? You like, you get through the interaction, you get through the presentation, you get through the day at work, you get through the difficult conversation, you get through the social interaction, you get through the supposedly fun stuff, you get through the date. Just like surviving life. And sometimes we just feel relief on the other side, like, oh, I made it. And we mistake that for connection or something like, oh, I feel relief, I guess we're connected. It's like, Are you? And I lived in this. I mean, you know, I would do this performance, this approval harvesting, and I got better at it. Frankly, I started studying dating advice. This is in my early 20s, and I started applying said dating advice. Walk like this, stand like this, say these kinds of things. I literally had a document file on my computer that was like 1,000 if-thens. If she says this, do this kind of thing. If she says that, do that kind of thing. It was like a personality construct. And it worked, I think, mostly because I was no longer hiding in my bedroom playing video games. Right. But and maybe there's some stuff in there, you know, you can play the approval game and get some, get some applause, get some scraps, get some something. So you can say, hey, look, it's working. You got some dates, Aziz. Yeah, yeah. But what does working actually mean? Is getting the date, is getting the kudos, is getting the raise working? And you might say, yeah, that's pretty much it, sums it up. But I would say, well, what's happening on the inside? Right? Because would you, would you like to have a billion dollars? Might be starting to nod your head and also have a horrendous unrelenting panic and insomnia for the rest of your life? Mm. You're like, well, hmm, I mean, a billion, that's a lot. I'd probably get over the panic. No, no, no, no, no, no. In this thought experiment, you have horrendous, panicky feelings all day long and you can't sleep and you're up all night ruminating. Would you take the billion dollars? A lot of people are still nodding their head. Yeah, it's a billion dollars. A lot of money is easy. I could probably find some narcotics or something. Hey, Michael Jackson, he just used like hardcore drugs to fall asleep, right? Didn't he just use— and you have an anesthesiologist like give him crazy medicines to fall asleep anyway. You know, I don't know what his experience was. It probably wasn't great at the end. So, no, no, you don't. I'm going to answer for you. You don't want the billion dollars. Slap that out of your hand. No. No, you put that down, right? It's just an illusion that we think we want the thing because what we really want is maybe the thing, but we really want is a feeling inside of feeling good about ourselves, feeling free, feeling light, feeling happy, feeling really actually connected with other people, or feeling actually proud of our contribution to a company or business or work, right? So what's really needed is to see the underlying equation that we've created because the reason we feel so insecure and become approval harvesters And why it feels like survival is because we've adopted an equation underneath, which is approval equals worth. If you approve of me, then I can feel good about myself. I feel a sense of self-worth. I am okay inside of here. And if you don't approve of me, if you dislike me, if you judge me, if you see me as a bad person or a an opinionated person or not charming or awkward or any of those things, that's awful. I mean, that's like getting a bad apple in your crop, in your harvest, ruins the whole box, right? So we're definitely trying to get approval, but we are especially trying to avoid disapproval. And most people will go much further to avoid disapproval. That's pretty much wired into our brains, right? We have a negativity bias. We're going to go a lot further to avoid negative things than we are to get positive things. So we're going to make sure that you don't disapprove of me. And then if I can get some approval, I'm going to do that. That's the plan. That's the protocol of approval harvesting. And I'm doing that because if you disapprove of me, then I'm worthless. I'm not saying you really are. I'm saying that's the pattern that we're running. That's what's creating approval harvesting. Yeah, it's not great, right? Maybe we don't want that. You're like, wait a minute, wait a minute. What? Why? Why do they determine my worth? Oh, that's a good question. Why have you given the keys to your kingdom away, my friend? Why have you said, you, stranger? No, no, not you. The one next to you. Yeah. Yeah. Why? I don't know why. Because I guess you're rich or pretty or something. You, you take my keys. Of worth. There you go. So what do you think? Do I pass? No? All right. Guess I'll— loser, right? So we're in such a vulnerable place. And that's why social interactions can feel exhausting and create a lot of anxiety. We feel pressure, we feel performance anxiety in work situations, you can feel performance anxiety in sex, performance anxiety everywhere. A conversation can trigger performance anxiety. And so we're going through a life and we're just harvesting approval. And the worst part about it is we're getting further and further disconnected from who you really are in yourself. Because you're like, well, I'll just be who you want me to be. And again, this is not a conscious, like you're walking into the party and you're rubbing your hands together being like, I'm going to pull a con on everybody. I'm going to be somebody else. Right? You come in being like, hey, I'm just going to maybe go there and see what's happening, connect and have some fun. That's what your plan is. And then you walk, you know, I was gonna say you walk into the room, but it probably starts on the way to the room. And some part of us kicks in and it's like, you know, dude, I don't think you just walking around connecting and having fun is gonna cut it. I mean, look at you. And then it starts, you know, giving you your list of why you suck. This is if you are, you know, I got a real good pregame like I did. And maybe it's just more subtle in the background, a little bit of tension in the chest, a little bit of urge to perform, a little bit of leaning on yourself. But regardless, we go in there, and instead of walking up to that next person in front of you at the party— your friend introduces you, 'Hey, this is, you know, Tina.' You're not looking at Tina. Let's pick a different name than Tina. What is this, the '80s? I don't know, let's call her Teresa. There's Teresa in front of you, and you're not looking at this human being, this full three-dimensional heck, 4-dimensional, right? She exists in time. This being on their whole arc of their life that has dreams and pains and past wounds and tender hopes and little quirks and humor and conflicting beliefs and just this whole complex being in front of you. And we flatten her into like a 2D non-player character. And we're like, huh? Yeah, okay. I wonder how many apples I can pick off of this tree. How many, how many units of approval can I harvest from this being? And I know it sounds bad when I say it that way, and I'm sorry, it is that way. I mean, it's painful. It's painful for everybody because no one wants to be harvested from. And people, again, because we're doing this sort of under the table, People might not directly see it, because we get good at kind of playing the game. But they feel it energetically. And I can't tell you how many clients I've worked with who they're just not getting the results they want in dating, especially socially, at work, they're not being respected, they're not being sought after, they're not being liked. They're not being desired. And they're going on and on in their head like, well, I'm not tall enough, I'm not attractive enough, I'm this race, I should be that race, I should have this skin color, I should have this title in my job, I should have this amount of money, I should this and this and that. And they have their huge list of what it takes for them to be worthy. And they think that's the problem. But the problem is that they've confused approval for worth. They've disconnected themselves from an inherent sense of worth. And so now they're needing to go harvest it from somebody. And when you go harvest it from somebody, they feel it energetically. And it's just not great. It might not be terrible. It might just be not very satisfying to have another one. It might not be compelling. And magnetic. And the best news of all is that you are compelling and you are magnetic when you give up this harvesting gig and do something very, very different. What's the different thing? Well, that's a subject for a future episode of what we're going to do instead. And you might start to think about it. That's why I'm not just telling you. I want you to think about it. What would you do instead? In fact, that's your action step for today. Is if first of all, just notice this pattern. You're getting a snapshot, like an X-ray image right now. But I want you to over this week observe in your own experience, because this will show up everywhere, your social life, your work. And I'm not saying you're doing it everywhere. Certain places you might not be, certain places you might be. What is the pattern? For most people, we do it when it's uncertain. They're going to like me here, like that dinner party. Like, I don't know those 5 people. If I were going to show up and hang with my friend one-on-one, Yeah, I'm relaxed. Why? Because I know he likes me. Right? But dinner party, I don't know all these people. Workplace environment, higher-ups, I don't know. And so that's when it arises. So notice when it arises for you, when you're doing it. Don't turn it into another thing to attack yourself for, like, oh, I'm doing that approval harvesting thing, I suck. That's not going to shift anything. That's just going to dig you deeper into the pit and make you harvest more approval. No, no, no, we got to see it. You can even have a little fun with it, be a little playful with it. Like, oh, there I am, Hoover vacuuming around. And then ask the life-changing question of like, well, what would I do instead? If I didn't need to harvest approval, if my worth was not in question, I wonder what I'd do at this dinner party. All right, thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.