Personal Development: Breaking Your Need For Approval

You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.
~ YOGI BHAJAN

The need for approval doesn't work.  It's a waste of time and kills freedom.  Don't let the desire to get people to like you motivate your choices and actions in life. People will tell you what you want to hear because they know why you're asking... they either see or hear your expression and don't want to disappoint you. Did you know that the need for approval could negatively impact your performance,causing you  to procrastinate, avoid doing important things, feel anxiety, fear, and get stuck in worry?  Your need for approval creates immense anxiety about the quality and value you provide and cause you to spend far too much time on tasks in order to perfect them. Your career and life could suffer.

You waste so much time and lose so many opportunities... either let the business go or learn how to live the truth in you. When you first start your business, social or otherwise, there is a craving for acceptance, but over time, if you keep this up, it could cause you to miss opportunities where, not only is the potential for reward high, but the possibility for criticism is equally large.  And if you're unable to speak your opinions or always avoiding disapproval or criticism, then this could significantly impact your success in a negative way. This is something you can, and dare I say, must change if you want to be happy in your life and successful in your business or chosen work. 

Below are three strategies to help you get to the place where you'd have a sound sense of self-acceptance and will no longer need to rely on the approval of others.

1. The first step is to strengthen your core foundation... your values and beliefs, so that you feel strong enough to go with what feels right for you. This way, you'll no longer feel the need to look to others to feel good enough about your choices and decisions. Keep a self-appreciation journal, where you start acknowledging daily or a few times a week, the things you’re most proud of about yourself; choices you’ve made, insights you’ve learned, things you like about yourself, times you’ve stayed true to yourself, or whatever feels right for you.
2. Secondly, you need to practice letting go of seeking validation for your choices. This means you need to start noticing your own language, self-talk, and behavior towards you, and identify when it's coming from wanting someone else to say you’re okay, that you made the right choice, or that you did the right thing. When you do make a decision, check in with yourself that it feels right, remind yourself that it's your choice, and give yourself validation for just being you, and don't forget to notate it in your self-appreciation journal.
3. Lastly, start being honest with yourself when you take on a new task or commitment, whether you are doing it because it's “right” for you or because you want to get approval and avoid disapproval. Sit down and evaluate your weekly tasks and ask yourself what's really necessary and important, verses what's driven by people pleasing. Then, slowly work through the “people pleasing” list and eliminate them.

It's time to break your need for approval from others and shift the focus to yourself more often.  Let go of needing others’ approval or at least, let go enough that it no longer sabotages your success. Once you move past this, you'll be free to achieve and create what you want in life with much less stress and effort. Focus your energy upon getting in touch with what really matters to you. Start to listen to what you really want in your life and act upon this to make it happen. Life becomes much more effortless when you're living in alignment with what's important to you.

Personal Development: How to Treat Compliments and Criticisms

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain
in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” ~ Winston Churchill

Everyone has had it happen. You ask for feedback, you say you want feedback, but when you actually get some constructive feedback you become defensive. Taking constructive criticism well is a difficult but vital skill to learn.  But equally important is the ability to not let compliments consume you, either. Because, compliments and criticism are just reflections of each other.  In order to properly handle criticism, you also need to properly handle compliments. If someone excessively flatters you for a minor success, you need to internalize it the same way you would internalize a scathing insult.

The person that is easily flattered is also easily criticized. ~ Scott H. Young