Approval Seeking and its Pitfalls

Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Hannah Talks About Things. So today I do not have my microphone or my ring light or any of those fun things because I'm in my office at work. But this is actually an episode of Hannah Reads About Things. So I haven't done a video in quite a while with the Thanksgiving— the Thanksgiving holiday, you know, and everything like that. So I wanted to do one. So the next article from Psychology Today that I wrote and published on June 22nd, 2019, is called "Why Do We Constantly Seek the Approval of Others? Falling into the Trap of People Pleasing Can Be a Slippery Slope." Oh, and then the first line: I have fallen into the trap of approval seeking for most of my life. Up until recently, I had a tendency to run most of my decisions by the people closest to me— friends, family, therapists, and than anyone that's in my closest network. I struggled with needing approval from others before feeling secure about a decision myself. The propensity, the propensity to seek approval from others affected both my relationships and my career. Even in starting this blog, I was riddled with fear of what others, especially those closest to me, would think. Now, that being said, especially when I started a video blog, I mean, If you scroll back to the first video that I did, I am so uncomfortable. I'm like, don't know what to do with my hands. I take my glasses off so that I won't have to see the camera at one point in one of the beginning videos. Right now I'm not wearing my glasses because there's a really awful glare in the light. So it was that fear of, oh my God, what are people going to think? So where did this innate fear of not receiving approval come from? I'm sure most of us can trace the etiology of our behaviors back to our upbringing, especially in childhood and early adolescence. We tell ourselves that time heals all wounds, which is wildly inaccurate, and that we shouldn't be this way anymore. For me, direct and effective therapy helped with making those connections. But while I can't determine your behavioral patterns rooted in— rooted deep in your histories and childhoods in a blog post, I can absolutely write about how I've been able to deconstruct approval-seeking behaviors now as an adult. First and foremost, let's use this checklist to assess whether or not you struggle with this set of behaviors. Do you feel fear before telling someone in your life about a decision you've made? Do you change your actions based on fear of how another person may react? Can you identify anything in your life that you regret doing or not doing, realizing in hindsight that it wasn't aligned with what you wanted? Do you struggle with setting boundaries, being direct, or communicating truthfully? One thing I know from my experience and probably most people's is that that's the one that really sticks out. Excuse me. So once again, do you struggle with setting boundaries, being direct, or communicating truthfully? Do you inadvertently lie or omit the truth when speaking to someone due to fear of their response or opinion? Do you let others' opinions dictate what choices you make? If you answered yes to any of these questions, Mazel tov. You struggle with people pleasing and approval seeking. You're also just part of the human experience. Oh, welcome to the human experience. The reality is that most of us, due to varying degrees, to varying degrees, feel fear about what others think about us. This can have to do with how we look, what we're doing with our careers or school, what choices we're making in our personal lives, et cetera. So what blocks us from getting in touch with our truth and with our own insight? What we want. Fear. Recently— so this was in June of 2019. Okay, okay. Fear. Recently I've been struggling with determining what is best for my career. I know what I love to do, which I'm grateful for, but feel stuck in what's comfortable. The difference in my experience this time, however, is that I'm not trying to seek approval from others before making a decision. Brief update: as most of you know, if you're following my blog post, I quit my job. I a job that I absolutely loved and have nothing but good things to say about, but was very comfortable even though I knew I wanted to do something different. I have since quit my job and am full-time self-employed in private practice. So this is cool to read back for the first time. What's changed for me is this: I no longer need others to validate my truth. It may sound trivial to some, but for others, you definitely know how big of a deal this is. From personal relationships to career goals, I am able to trust my gut and follow my intuition. It's not always easy, by the way. I know sometimes I write as if this is super easy. It's not, and actually comes with a lot of tears at times. Fear of the unknown absolutely comes up, but it is no longer being exacerbated by needing the approval of others. Seeking out opinions and advice is one thing, especially when it's solicited, but attempting to manipulate loved ones to support our choices is a completely different story. So what would it be like for you if the people in your life didn't approve of a decision? Is the fear of their disapproval about them, or is it about you? Short answer: it's about you. For me, I consistently projected my internal insecurity onto others. When I'm wholeheartedly secure about a decision in my life, I don't look for approval from others. So stop and think about a decision you recently made or something you're doing in your life that you feel super secure about. Is that thing something that you still go to people and try to get their opinion on? Often the answer is no. When I'm insecure, however, and internally questioning my decisions, either on a conscious or subconscious level, that's when I start to get bogged down with what others think. So if you start to feel this increased anxiety about what people think about a certain decision, try to pause and look internally and say, is it that I'm insecure about this decision? And why? You know, like, what's really going on in me? A lot of times we mask our own internal process by seeking out what others think, but all they have is their opinions based in their own experience, which is going to be biased. Mine too. I once told my therapist that I didn't want to tell her about a decision I was making— to impulsively buy a house, by the way— because I thought she was going to judge me and make me feel bad. As a therapist myself, I am well aware on a cognitive level that therapists— healthy ones at least— aren't invested in their clients' lives. They are solely there to evoke questions, navigate the client towards their truth, and be a sounding And yet internally I was like terrified of what she was gonna say. She smiled and asked me why I thought she was going to judge me. She reminded me that I'm literally paying for her services every week and her job is not to sway me in one direction or another. She essentially led me to my own truth, which was that I was fearful of what she thought because I knew in my gut it was a horrible idea to buy a house at the time. I didn't just want to admit or get honest with myself, so instead I projected it all onto her. And again, like, I know this stuff theoretically and cognitively, but That does not change the emotional experience. So if you ever tell yourself, "Oh, I should have known," or like, "Oh, I— like, why wasn't I aware of that?" Like, again, congrats, welcome to the human experience. This approval-seeking led me to the point of actually leaving my therapist a voicemail telling her I wanted to quit therapy and then blocking her number because I was too scared of her response. This was like a year ago, by the way. So again, I know sometimes I speak and write as if like this is what it should look like, but like I still do this stuff. But can I stay honest and accountable and also like laugh about it? This was all because I didn't want to talk to her about some of the decisions that I was making at the time. In hindsight, we both find this hilarious. I was on a mission to cling to my impulsive decisions, and I was terrified of anyone disagreeing with me because it would have shown a light on my own truth. But instead of acknowledging that, which I was not able to do at that time, I projected my internal conflict onto her, and it manifested into a massive resentment. I blamed her for ending my relationship with my significant other at the time, even Even though I had been struggling with it for months, I told her I felt that she was too judging and too shaming. We were able to work through the blatant transference that was going on in her office as I hurled projection after projection at her. She provided gentle psychoeducation about how my interaction with her is a microcosm for my interaction with people in my life— fear-based, approval-seeking, and resenting when they don't co-sign. So that's a somewhat long-winded story about how I began my journey with walking through approval-seeking and people-pleasing. Pro tip: go to therapy. I encourage each of you to ask yourselves, what is it that you are seeking approval most with? In your innermost gut, how do you feel about the decision yourself? What would it be like for you to let go of the expectations of others and live for yourself? Side note, we do this all the time with social media. As I said in a recent video, I've been taking like a massive step back from my phone after reading Catherine Price's How to Break Up with Your Phone. And I recently re-downloaded Instagram and had to kind of stop myself from scrolling through stories and looking at people's stuff, and instead I'm just trying to use it as a marketing tool. But even the brief things I was exposed to fueled me with judgment and resentment and all these things. And I was like, God, like, we live our lives— maybe you're not like this, maybe it's just me— scrolling and taking inventory of other people's lives while feeling insecure about our own. I almost want— I actually did. I, um, this is really I don't know if I'm gonna— yeah, I'm going to. Okay, um, I was— I posted a story with some like recent professional things and I was looking at who viewed my story. Again, like this kind of self-centered, like, I want to know who's looking, like what? And I saw that someone who isn't following me was viewing my story and I knew why they were viewing my story and like what they were looking for. And so then I immediately posted a picture of the thing they were probably looking for to kind of throw it in their face that like, hey, back off. So this was, this was 2 days ago and I like 2 minutes passed and I got this feeling in my gut of like, what are you doing? And I went back and I deleted it because like the level of micromanipulation that I was doing just, it was so automatic just like that. Like, and it's not like, oh, I'm a horrible person for doing that. It's like, okay, let me catch myself. Stay honest, stay accountable. Again, kind of laugh about how insane we can be. I can be. And immediately change my behavior to be the person that I want to be. Because to do— to have self-esteem, I gotta do esteemable things. I have to. And just like in the 12 steps— in the 12th step, I need to practice these principles in all my affairs, which means integrity, honesty, accountability. And it is so easy to like let up on that. So, okay. Ah, it's one thing to do whatever we want and leave a trail of destruction and chaos in our wakes, but it's another to get in tune with our truth and choose courage over comfort, as Dr. Brené Brown would say. To stand in the light, to listen to that inner voice and to trust it. Because no matter where you are in life, remember that you aren't stuck. Be it in your work, your path in school, your relationships and whatever else may be troubling you. We are never stuck and we are never truly alone. Seek out the people that will listen to you with an open heart, call you out on your shit, but never tell you what to do. And if you're still seeking out that perfect black and white answer, the bad news is that it doesn't exist. We live in the gray. And no one can make our decisions for us. No sponsor, friend, parent, or therapist. The most freeing experience of my life thus far has been able to rely on my intuition, to be unapologetically myself, and to stand in my own light. I absolutely love my support network and utilize them often, but they do not dictate my actions today. So stand in your light. You deserve it. Woo! That was a long one. Um, I have nothing else to say about all of that. Bye!