IF YOU SEEK APPROVAL YOU WILL FEEL CRITICISM.

How often do you find yourself adjusting who you are, or how you show up, in order to meet what you perceive are others people's expectations, living for their approval, and losing sight of your own authenticity and desires?

Most people spend their lives trying to fit in to a societal mould, trying to be what they think others want to see, forgetting that the only, and most important, approval they need is their own.

When focusing on trying to impress others, you lose touch with yourself and become a people pleaser. You start chasing validation as the person you are portraying, seeking it from one person after another until you create an existence of multitudes of personalities, one for each of the people whose expectations you are trying to meet. It is an exhausting and unsustainable existence. Neglecting your authenticity, because of a need to be liked and accepted by people.

Here's something you may not have thought of, when you fit in, you blend in, when you blend in you become invisible. What is your true desire? What is really happening is that you are trying to avoid criticism. Instead of accepting that some may not be ready for your authenticity, and seeing it as rejection, you blend in to become invisible, hiding your true self, to avoid being judged.

This means you never give yourself the opportunity to be seen, so you can never get the approval you seek, because if you do fit in, deep down on the edge of your subconscious mind, you know the person being accepted is only a front, it is not you. You, the real you, can never be accepted because you never allow anyone to see it.

Not only are these facades exhausting but they are also fragile - when you are focused on, and in need of, approval then the lack of it, or worse, disapproval and criticism, will tear them down. You become imprisoned by your need for the good opinions from other people. Your constant adjustments to your character and behaviour erodes your freedom to express your authentic self, and in time you lose sight of who you really are, you will have changed so often, for so many people that the real you is long forgotten. When you live like this, it's only a matter of time before you burn out and start to question why, despite all your effort and attention, it’s never enough. You then start to believe that, no matter how hard you try, YOU will never be enough.

Maybe you already feel that, most people do in at least one area of life.

Consider this quote “If there were no applause and no criticism, who would you be?” (... Quentin Crisp) - If you weren't to desire or need anyone else’s approval, how would your life change? Who would you truly live for now?

It’s often too easy to get caught up pursuing validation, but the reality is that the moment you stop seeking approval from other people is the moment you start living authentically for yourself.

The real shame behind this is that the people who would like the real you, love the real you, want to hang around with that beautifully unique essence that is the real you, will never be able to because they will never see the real you when you are obscuring your authenticity, just so that you can blend in and avoid the feeling of not being good enough, should anyone not instantly resonate with you and leave you feeling rejected, unwanted, dare I say it - judged.

When you live authentically for yourself you have more worth and value to those you would have otherwise needed approval from. You become an example to them to be their authentic selves, you have more energy and more positivity to share and influence the world with. You have more enjoyment through doing what lights you up instead of trying to fit in, and that means a higher vibration to exude on to, and positively impact those around you. Ironically, you are more likely to get greater recognition and approval from people when you are not trying to get it.

Would you rather blend in and be invisible or allow yourself the opportunity to connect with those who were meant to connect with the real you?

Sebastian Attewell ESM CONSULTING

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