T. Harv Eker says approval-seeking is a survival habit from childhood that sabotage adults. He describes the patterns: boasting, people-pleasing, automatic yes responses. The fix is reconditioning through awareness and deliberate practice to build new habits.
Basic survival from early on, that we learned to survive meant we had to have the approval of others in order to survive. It was necessary. You understand that. And as a very, very young baby and whatever, and a toddler, and literally until you're like, you know, 14, 15, 16, as an adult, as a human, you need the approval of other people in order to survive. Because if you don't, you're pretty well dead. The problem is, for most of us, we are conditioned for approval, that they need approval. We're all conditioned for that. It's a survival mechanism. The problem is that that still runs most of us in our adult life. It just takes a different form. So there's nothing wrong with looking for approval. You're going to do that, but when it runs your life as an adult, you don't need that anymore. But we're still running it habitually. And then when it hurts us, then it's a problem, you see? So we have to understand that inherently it came from something and that the only way to offset that and overcome that is to develop a new what? A new habit. So how do you develop a new habit? An awareness and a practice. So first, we do always do the same thing. It's a reconditioning process. Number one is awareness. You have to become aware of when you're doing this. So how do you go about trying to get approval from other people? What do you do? How do you do it? Write it down. Well, you know, I boast. So when I'm in a group, I come in there and I'll say something and I'll boast about what I've done or what I'm gonna do, or I'll do favors for people. You know when they say, come and do this, or can you do this? Yes, yes, yes, I'm a yes, sir. Yes, of course. Yes, of course. Yes, I will. But then I'll resent it. Right. So you start to feel how it doesn't serve you.
