Approval from others can limit our perspective
Our earliest memories include the approval and disapproval of others. Typically these memories spring from the reactions of our parents. Young children depend on parents and significant adults to shape their boundaries of appropriate words and behavior. A perspective is established.
Parents, who are in control, mold children into versions of what parents believe is suitable. Children, who have very little control, learn to seek parental approval to make their lives more pleasant.
Children need approval from adults who provide their basic needs. They quickly learn the correlation between having approval and getting more of what they want.
As we mature. the need for approval from significant adults- including parents- lessens. But we continue to want approval. And the want extends into a larger pool of significant adults. Our parents head the list. Add friends, partner , work colleagues, siblings,neighbors and the list grows far beyond our capacity to maintain approval.
Blinders on our perspective
Our earliest training taught us the benefit of having approval . Our adult perspective shifts as we experience the impossibility of having consistent approval from everyone around us. What we want is not always echoed by those in our circle of contacts. This can be unsettling. This can be threatening to our sense of “rightness.”
We unknowingly put blinders on our own perspective to secure the approval of others. We second guess our intentions. We allow ourselves to shelf what we want for what others want for us.
What others want ( or suggest) for us rarely has much to do with what matches our desires. The opinions and advice of others has a great amount to do with what matches their own values and fears. It also has a LOT to do with how others validate their own choices and paths.
So we blind ourselves to what might be our best path. We revert to the childlike need for approval.
Stages of life require change. We grow taller, we grow more talented and independent. What often lags behind is how long we sustain our need for approval.
Collecting approval from others costs us. It limits the risks we might take. It undermines the “I” in what “I” want. Parents create us- biologically and emotionally. But WE create the life that we choose. A life that fits us, that reflects our passions, our joys and our path.
Approval from others has no measurable positive effect once we are adults. It does not add to our experience but rather subtracts from the important work of creating the path and the life we choose for ourselves.
