Approval addiction is the need for validation from others in order to feel "good enough" about ourselves.

If we cannot feel good about ourselves, our creative efforts, or our lives without hearing from those around us that we are indeed doing a good job, we are putting ourselves in a very powerless position.

* While most of us enjoy appreciation for our efforts, there is a huge difference between a healthy pleasure in compliments, and approval addiction. The first problem with an excessive need to be validated by those around us for everything we do, is that we are relying on something that is beyond our control to make us feel good. The only way that we can truly feel good about ourselves and our lives is to create our validation within ourselves.

* Another issue is that seeking approval from others will never fill the void that is created by a lack of self-approval, and this is where the addiction sets in. Because we are looking to other people to give us what we have failed to create within ourselves, we find that we cannot get enough. No matter how many times our loved ones tell us we are great, or how many compliments we receive, it is never enough, because we can't absorb what we are greedily seeking.

* The words of others can be like the icing on the cake of our solid sense of rightness in ourselves, but if we don't have that cake to start with, no amount of icing is going to do us much good. We have got to approve of ourselves first. If we can create a healthy self approval, then we will be able to accept both praise and criticism from others, without either being always hungry for more, or feeling shattered.

* Approval addiction is usually a long-held and deeply rooted problem, and often stems from a lack of approval in childhood. While it is good and healthy to understand and acknowledge the origin of the problem, it is not helpful to dwell on what we didn't have in the past. We need to make a conscious choice, as adults, to create what we need in the present.

- Amanda Harvey.

People-Pleasing Pattern.

Read over these statements to see if they apply to you under some circumstances:

° I try to be who someone wants me to be.

° I am afraid to rock the boat.

° It is hard for me to know what I want.

° I avoid speaking my mind.

° I find it easier to go along with what someone wants or with their opinion.

° I fantasize about a strong person taking over my life and making it work.

° It is hard for me to express my feelings when they are different from someone I’m close to.

° It is difficult for me to say No.

° I avoid getting angry.

° It is hard for me to take initiative.

° I try to be nice rather than expressing how I really feel.

° I want everyone to get along.

If these statements fit you in certain situations, you may have a People-Pleaser Pattern.

You don’t need to behave this way all the time. You may be pleasing only with certain people or in certain situations.

Personality patterns aren’t the same as personality types.

If you have this pattern, it doesn’t mean that you are always a People-Pleaser, just that a part of you is.

- Jay Earley, PH.D.

“If you are an approval addict, your behaviour is as easy to control as that of any other junkie. All a manipulator needs do is a simple two-step process: Give you what you crave, and then threaten to take it away. Every drug dealer in the world plays this game.” - Harriet B. Braiker.

A people pleaser can often self-criticize themselves to see if he or she

was up to scratch and perfect for the lives of others.

This is very self destructive behaviour. No one is perfect and running oneself ragged to try to please everyone else is a sad way to live.

But be sure that a lot of those that you are friends with will never want you to change, they like having their all day sucker friend at their service all day. So asking your friends for advice how to become more independent is like a cow asking a farmer to let her free.

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The people pleaser often says "Yes!" when people ask he or she to do things, and yet you (if this were you) say to yourself, "If only I had more time do the things that I want to do!", "If only they had asked someone else." (As if you think it is their blame because you said Yes!"

Being a people pleaser will run you ragged and tire you to an early sad grave. Learn to say a healthy, "No!" and go and do what matters to you the most with those who are in your heart all day long.

People who don't love themselves tend to try to prove themselves to other people and be there for everyone. Being there and always helpful and always saying yes often means a wall of constant compliments and thanks and some can feel that this validates their worth. But the end result is always that no matter what you do for others your life never gets better, ever. Eventually the people pleaser becomes tired and feels worthless and empty inside.

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The way to freedom from this curse is to break free from all those that depend on you and who want you to be there for them, and learn how to love yourself, respect yourself and to give your life what it needs and wants for happiness.

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All the best from

James M Sandbrook.

2nd of April, 2017.