Needing approval is tantamount to saying, ‘Your view of me is more important than my own opinion of myself’
– Dr Wayne W. Dyer, Your Erroneous Zones
CONSIDER THE CASE of Ozzie, one of American psychiatrist Dr Wayne Dyer’s middle-aged patients. He had an approval-seeking problem. Like most of us, he loved it when people approved of or endorsed what he said or did. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough for him — he had to get everything he thought or said or did sanctioned and approved by everybody. Else, he felt immobilized.
Ozzie once shared his opinion about mercy-killing with three people: his father-in-law, his boss and his brother. When he told his father-in-law that he totally backed mercy-killing, the man wrinkled his brows in disapproval. Immediately, Ozzie changed stance. “What I meant was, if someone is conscious and actually asks to be killed, the mercy killing is O.K.” The man relaxed; so did Ozzie.
When he took his opinion to his boss, there was an explosion. “How can you even say such a thing? Don’t you know that’s playing God?” his boss yelled. Perturbed, Ozzie modified his position. “What I meant was, only in extreme cases, when a patient is declared legally dead, it’s all right to pull the plug,” he said. The boss agreed; so, Ozzie relaxed.
With his brother, it was easy – he concurred with Ozzie’s viewpoint. So, Ozzie didn’t have to change his position at all. He had his brother’s approval, so all was good.
Desire vs need
According to Dr Dyer, simply wanting approval is not unhealthy; it becomes self-destructive only when the desire for approval changes into an immobilizing need. That is when “you’re making others’ opinions of you more important than your own self-assessments… (when) “your self is sacrificed to the opinions and predilections of others,” he writes in Your Erroneous Zones.
Such a need develops from the very fabric of the culture we grow up in, a culture that constantly “reinforces approval-seeking behavior as a standard of life”. Since the message we receive from childhood is “Don’t trust yourself – check it out with someone else first”, we learn to feel depressed, unworthy and even guilty when we don’t get approval.
“The bestowal of approval can be a great manipulator. Your worth is lodged in others and if they refuse to dole out their approval, you’ve got nothing. You’re without worth. And so it goes, the more flattery you need, the more you can be manipulated by others.”
Cultural messages
Children are bombarded with approval-seeking messages very early. “Check out everything with mommy and daddy; mommy and daddy will do everything for you; don’t rely on yourself to make decisions, ask someone first” – such are the messages they get from their families. Although a certain amount of parental approval and acceptance is necessary in the formative years, things are often taken to such an extreme that children learn not to think or act without permission. Approval is made contingent to being proper. This is how the neurotic seeds of self-doubt are planted.
Similar messages reinforcing dependence and approval-seeking are also picked up from schools and colleges, where the best student is the one who falls in line readily, carries out instructions regularly and is not overly independent-minded.
Breaking the habit
Once approval-seeking becomes a habit, it is difficult to snap out of it but not impossible. Breaking a habit takes time and effort. As American author Mark Twain writes in Puddinghead Wilson’s Calendar: “Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.” We can take a tip from that.
According to Dr Dyer, the first thing an approval-seeker must come to terms with is that s/he cannot please everyone. People will disagree with what s/he says or does. There are no two ways about that. If s/he manages to please half the people s/he knows, s/he is doing well. But that means the other half will not grant him/her the approval s/he seeks.
Having accepted this, s/he can start looking at disapproval in a new way. “When someone disapproves of something you say, instead of being hurt, or instantly shifting your opinion to gain praise, you can remind yourself that you’ve run into one of those folks in the fifty percent who don’t agree with you. Knowing that you’ll always get some disapproval for everything you feel, think, say or do is the way out of the tunnel of despair,” says Dr Dyer.
Reasons & payoffs
But why would approval-seekers cling to such self-destructive behavior and constantly run themselves down? For the simple reason that they get payoffs from it, writes Dr Dyer.
Some of the common reasons/payoffs are:
(i) Such behavior allows approval-seekers to put the responsibility for their feelings on others. If they are hurt or depressed because someone else didn’t approve of them, that person is responsible for how they feel.
(ii) If someone else is responsible for their feelings, he is also responsible for not allowing them to change.
(iii) As long as someone else is responsible for their feelings and inability to change, they need not take any risk. They can simply feel sorry for themselves and do nothing.
(iv) That someone else is also responsible for protecting them, so approval-seekers can happily pamper their inner child.
(v) Last but not the least, that person is ultimately responsible for everything that is wrong with their lives.
Seven strategies
The strategies to eliminate approval-seeking behavior are inherent in the reasons for it, says Dr Dyer. “The theme of avoiding responsibility, change and risk is at the heart of all destructive thinking and behavior…” he writes.
Some strategies he suggests are:
(i) When someone disapproves of something you say, do not shift stance or defend yourself. Simply tell the person he is getting upset because he feels you should think differently. “This will keep you in touch with the fact that disapproval belongs to him, not you”.
(ii) If you feel someone is trying to manipulate you by withholding approval, simply say so. Do not change your position to get approval.
(iii) Actively seek out someone who will disapprove of something you say, stick to your stand and train yourself to stay calm.
(iv) Practise ignoring disapproval and refuse to be manipulated.
(v) Break the link between what others think, say or do and your own self-worth. When you face disapproval, tell yourself: “This is her stuff. I expect her to behave that way. It has nothing to do with me”.
(vi) Keep asking yourself if it matters that others disapprove of you. Tell yourself what they think can have no effect on you unless you let it.
(vii) Don’t try to convince others about your viewpoint. Don’t argue that you are correct. Simply believe it.
Conclusion
“If you can eliminate this troublesome erroneous zone from your life, the rest will seem easy… It will require a great deal of practice, but it is worth every bit of effort you put into it. Immunity from despair in the face of disapproval is the ticket to a lifetime of delectable personal present-moment freedom,” concludes Dr Dyer.