Seeking approval can easily turn into an unhealthy habit, plus it’s also a sign of a loss in confidence. Do you seek approval? That’s what I speak about in today’s podcast. Listen here to know more, but if you can’t have a listen, then you can read what I’ve said too:
Do You Seek Approval?
“Helloo, I’m Shruti and this is my podcast space where I speak about life lessons, chronic conditions, mental and physical health tips and experiences.
Please note that this podcast is available in text format on my website allthingsendometriosis.com in the podcast section. And very importantly, this podcast does not aim to substitute any medical advice because I am not a medical professional – I’m just sharing what I’ve observed and learnt over time.
Now lets get on with today’s topic…so…
Do you seek approval or reassurance before doing something in the fear of getting it wrong?
When I was in school, my teacher said to my mum “your daughter is doing well, but despite her answers being right, she always comes and asks if her answer is right or not – she needs to have more confidence in herself.”I think I was 12 then.
Once mum told me this, I thought… what’s the worst that will happen?
I’ll get it wrong, I’ll probably learn from it. It took quite some time to get out of this habit. But I got there.
So all this that I just said, I had written for a one minute video in 2018 on ‘Seeking Approval’. It was a piece I wrote quickly – I didn’t give it a lot of thought and since it was meant to be a short video so I guess that’s why I guess I didn’t give it a lot of thought.
But today I’m going to revisit this – revisit this habit of seeking approval and how it quietly seeps back in whenever confidence begins to drop.
I’m the youngest in my family, and I’ve looked up to everyone older than me – I grew being in awe of everyone and believing that since they’ve seen more of life, they know better. And I’m probably wrong.
Plus I was scared of being wrong. Strangely, I think I saw it as a major personality flaw you know to be wrong, or not understand something. Somehow I was expecting myself to just get it.
After that conversation between my mother and my teacher, my mum started giving me more confidence. She didn’t start dropping compliments all over the place – it’s not her style – in fact she never gives compliments.
Instead, she started encouraging me to trust myself and I think that’s far more important than the compliments, it’s the encouragement, it’s the confidence building.
[Thinks]
But maybe confidence building does come from compliments so I guess she had another way of giving me compliments and I think I’ve just realised that that’s what she did hmmm okay…
So being a person of a few words, for her, my mum to tell me that she trusts me and my judgement and that I must trust myself as well made me feel as if I had her to back me up.
This mindset of mine didn’t obviously change over night because I was still afraid to make a mistake. But I kept at it. Every time I felt tentative, I backed myself. I reminded myself to take the plunge and guess what, I made mistakes – I screwed up, but I survived.
I learnt that you can always pick yourself up from a mistake.
But let me fast forward to the last few years. I started waiting for things to be in place, the perfect setup, the right camera, a logo that works, a day that I look my best, the right amount of money, the right amount of knowledge… why? Because I wanted things to be perfect, I wanted instant approval, I didn’t want to look like I’m not good at what I do or that I was wrong.
Quickly, I realised that I was making the same mistakes I made when I was 12. Ah… the irony – I was afraid of making mistakes and that was the biggest mistake of all.
I decided to go back to what my mum told me – to trust myself, to trust my instincts. Nothing will ever be perfect, situations will never be ideal.
Then I got more sick from endometriosis and the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome I have – and that mentally removed the possibility of an ‘ideal time’ in my life, which as we know is a myth any way no matter who you are.
So I decided to stop overthinking, to back myself, to stop asking for opinions… to believe in myself and be accepting that this is my ideal time.
Like they say, ‘no time like the present’… but all this was possible because seeking approval was now not a concern. I revisited the 12 year old me by reminding myself the importance of errors being okay – of it being a part of life – how failing or falling isn’t wrong – as long as I learn and get back up.
Seeking approval not only stagnates our growth, our learning, but it also eats away our precious time.
So all of you out there who hang on to another person’s word, or eagerly await for a stamp of approval – you’re giving someone else too much power while diminishing and disrespecting your own.I started with small steps. Every time I saw myself seeking approval by wanting to ask, I had to pause, rethink what I’m about to do and ask myself if I really NEED this approval – most of the time, I did not and that helped me regain some of my decision making power and helped me gain more confidence in myself.
I was re-claiming my ability to be an independent thinker – one that is okay to make mistakes as long as I’m willing to use that knowledge to help me move ahead and even enjoy the present.
Now I’ll stop right here, because I sense I will repeat myself – but even then, I will repeat something I have said in a couple of my podcasts and blog posts – observing and introspecting can be life changing. Please do that.
Good luck everyone… Oh.. if you’d like to share your thoughts and experiences then please DM me on Instagram, my Insta handle is @footprintsnoboundaries and my email address is [email protected].
Take care people… byeeee”
Read Here For:
- Podcast Ep 14: Finding Joy in Your Own Company
- Podcast Ep 13: The Art of Getting Angry
- Can Endometriosis Kill You?
- How A Mouth Guard Has Almost Cured My Migraine
I’d love to know what you thought of today’s podcast. Please do share your thoughts in the comments section below…
Previous: Podcast Episode 19 – How to Find Humour to Ease Anxiety & Stress
Up Next: Podcast Episode 21 – How I Give & Take Advice | Constructive Criticism
(text version will be posted next Sunday, but if you would like to hear it on Spotify, then you can here)
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Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. I am a patient and have created this platform to share my experiences. This is all purely informative and in no way am I providing medical advice. Please consult a medical professional.
I love how you say you can always pick yourself up from a mistake. Sometimes it can feel as though the whole world will cave in if we do something wrong, yet a week later we would probably roll our eyes at a tiny thing we were stressing over!
As a former people pleaser, I’ve followed similar steps to decide if I really need someone’s approval. Once you get good at it, it’s so freeing!
That self-esteem and willingness to trust yourself is so important! I found that the shift from being self-employed(even though only having an occasional client) to being a student(even though I was a graduate student in a demanding program) sucked away some of my hard-earned self-esteem and left me much more uncertain than I had been before grad school. Starting my blog a few years after graduation really helped me have something to be proud of again, and something to focus on that was entirely my doing! That instinct to look for experts to approve of your work is a hard one – and I still occasionally struggle with the fear that others don’t feel that my work is good enough or interesting enough to keep working on. Not seeking approval is hard, but being self-assured and trusting inf yourself is such a valuable trait!
Revisiting our issues and thoughts is definitely useful and constant practice trains us to make it into a positive habit indeed 🙂