“I MUST PLEASE EVERYONE!” ~ Approval Addition

 

Have you ever feel the need that you must please everyone? That it is your life’s duty to make everyone around you happy? That it is okay to sacrifice your own well-being as long as others are happy?

I have. It once wrecked my heart and soul. And I found out that it is not okay.

In an effort to satisfy everyone around me, I once became someone that I am not.

Within the many hats that I brought to people, I once asked myself, “who am I? What is my identity? I need to be liked….”

That’s approval addition.

The Dangers of Approval Addiction

Alchohol Addiction. Drug Addiction. Tobacco Addiction. You may have heard any one of those before. Approval Addiction, though doesn’t require substance, is equally deadly to our mind. Their common ground is the negative influence of your own thoughts, your subconscious mind. Your thoughts are filled with making sure others are happy.

Do any of these sound familiar to you? “I’m good with pleasing people.” “I’m happy if everyone else is happy.” “I have trouble saying no to people.” “I must say yes to my boss’ ridiculous demands just to make him/her look good.” These are all subconscious thoughts of approval addiction.

The dilemma to please everybody is that since everyone has different personalities, by switching your own personality to ‘fit in’ will one day backfire if those people you know joined together in a group setting. Whose personality do I please? If I please this person with this personality, then I might offend this other person with another personality. It is going to happen.

Then later, you can’t stop thinking about the other person you might have offended. The guilt of ‘how can I woo this person back?’ can be extremely overwhelming. Long-term depression might result, and probably attempt to do stupid things along the way. Robin Thicke’s album about his ex-wife may be a more (in)famous example of it.

How do I stop it?

Find yourself. Rebuild your identity. That’s about it.

But be forewarned, it is not easy to do. That’s because you are going to face rejection and being ignored. You are going to have people who yell ‘USELESS’ at you. You are going to get eye rolls from others.

It’s okay for others to reject us or ignore us, but we must not remove our own identities in an effort to reduce such rejection. It is hard and very painful to feel rejected, yet we must understand that such is life.  By learning more about our own identities, we can learn to mitigate or even cure your sadness from within. Eventually, we gain respect within ourselves.

If you are religious, Joyce Meyer’s Approval Addiction: Overcoming Your Need to Please Everyone is the de facto choice on curing approval addition. One of the chapters in David Burns’ Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy also helps.

Sam of Hearts’ goal, as a blog, is to let you become self-aware so that if this is what you are doing, it’s time to stop because it is negatively affecting your soul. If the present circumstance is causing you unhappiness, I encourage you to give these books a read! After all, I didn’t come this far all by myself.