I Need Too Much Approval - How to Stop Arranging Your Life Around Other People's Likes ebook

INTRO

You send a message. Nothing controversial. Nothing dramatic. Just a normal message written by a normal person attempting to communicate with another normal person.

Then ten minutes pass.

No reply.

You look at the message again, because perhaps it has changed since you sent it. It has not. You reread the final sentence. Was the period too aggressive? Should you have used an emoji? Maybe two emojis would have seemed desperate. Perhaps no emoji made you sound cold. You consider sending another message to clarify the emotional meaning of the first message, which would be an impressive achievement because the first message said, “Sounds good. See you Thursday.”

Apparently, international diplomacy has been conducted with less analysis.

This is what needing too much approval can look like. It is not always standing in a crowded room shouting, “PLEASE LIKE ME.” Usually it is quieter and much more respectable. You change your opinion slightly because someone looks unconvinced. You volunteer for something you do not want to do because saying no might disappoint somebody. You spend forty minutes choosing a photo because the first nineteen versions of your face were apparently unacceptable to the United Nations Facial Expression Committee.

You tell yourself you are being thoughtful.

Sometimes you are.

Sometimes you are redesigning your life around imaginary reactions from people who are currently thinking about lunch.

That is the strange part. Approval-seeking often feels practical. If people like you, life is easier. If your boss approves of you, work tends to go better. If your partner feels appreciated, the relationship benefits. If your friends enjoy your company, they are more likely to invite you places instead of forming a secret new group chat called “Everyone Except Kevin.”

Wanting approval is normal.

Building your internal government around it is where things get expensive.

The problem begins when other people’s reactions stop being useful information and become instructions. Someone looks disappointed, so you change your decision. Someone disagrees, so you assume you must have explained yourself badly. Someone does not praise your work, so your brain quietly downgrades six hours of effort from “pretty good” to “possible professional disaster.”

One raised eyebrow can suddenly acquire executive authority.

You may even be very good at reading people. That can make the problem worse. You notice tiny changes in tone, timing, facial expression, punctuation, and enthusiasm. Someone replies “Okay” instead of “Okay!” and your private investigation department opens a file.

What happened?

Are they annoyed?

Was it something you said?

Should you fix it?

Should you apologize?

Should you apologize for apologizing too much?

Meanwhile, the other person may simply have been carrying groceries.

Approval-seeking is not stupidity, weakness, or some mysterious personality defect. It is usually a strategy that once made sense. Being accepted matters. Humans are social creatures, which is an elegant scientific way of saying that most of us do not enjoy being excluded while everyone else eats pizza in another room.

Your brain notices social approval because social approval has value. The trouble is that the system can become oversensitive. Instead of asking, “Is there useful feedback here?” it starts asking, “How can we prevent anyone from being even mildly unhappy with us?”

This is a terrible assignment.

There are billions of people.

Some of them leave one-star reviews for national parks because it rained.

You cannot build a stable life around universal approval because universal approval does not exist. More importantly, chasing it does not even reliably produce the result you want. When you constantly adapt yourself to other people, they may like the version you present—but you are left wondering whether they would like the actual version.

So you work harder.

You become more agreeable. More available. More careful. You explain yourself more. You soften perfectly reasonable opinions until they have the structural strength of soup. You say, “Whatever works for everyone,” while silently hoping everyone chooses the thing that works for you.

They do not.

Of course they do not. You removed the evidence.

Then resentment appears, which feels unfair because nobody technically forced you to agree. You volunteered, smiled, said “No problem,” and later became furious while loading the dishwasher with the emotional intensity of a revenge thriller.

This is one of approval-seeking’s favorite tricks: making you participate in your own frustration.

The solution is not to stop caring what anyone thinks. That sounds bold for approximately seven minutes and then becomes terrible advice. Other people sometimes know things you do not. Feedback matters. Relationships involve consideration. A person who proudly announces, “I do not care what anybody thinks,” may be emotionally liberated.

Or banned from three restaurants.

The goal is not indifference.

The goal is proportion.

You want to be able to hear an opinion without automatically obeying it. You want disappointment to feel uncomfortable without feeling catastrophic. You want to make a reasonable decision and survive the shocking possibility that another adult may not prefer it.

They will recover.

Probably without medical supervision.

In this book, we are going to separate useful approval from compulsive approval-seeking. You will learn how to notice when you are changing your behavior for sensible social reasons and when you are performing tiny emotional gymnastics to avoid somebody’s temporary disapproval.

We will look at why reassurance feels so good and lasts approximately as long as a cookie near an open laptop. We will deal with overexplaining, people-pleasing, checking reactions, changing opinions too quickly, saying yes when you mean no, and treating every lukewarm response like an annual performance review.

More importantly, you will get practical ways to stop.

Not inspirational slogans.

Not “just be yourself,” as though you misplaced yourself behind the couch.

You will learn how to delay automatic reassurance-seeking, make decisions before polling the entire population, tolerate small amounts of disapproval, separate feedback from identity, and decide whose opinions actually deserve weight. You will also learn what to do when the reasonable method fails because you are tired, stressed, emotionally invested, or dealing with somebody whose favorite hobby is making other people second-guess themselves.

There will be a minimum version for bad days.

Because any system that works only when you are rested, confident, organized, hydrated, emotionally centered, and holding a freshly prepared smoothie is not a system.

It is a hostage situation.

You will not finish this book caring about nobody. That would be strange, lonely, and probably inconvenient at weddings. You will still want to be liked. You will still sometimes wonder what somebody thought. You may still stare at a message and briefly suspect the absence of an exclamation mark has destroyed a friendship.

The difference is that you will know what to do next.

You will stop treating every opinion like a vote on whether you are allowed to continue being yourself. You will stop handing random people tiny pieces of control over decisions they do not have to live with. And you will begin building something much more useful than universal approval: the ability to respect other people without constantly abandoning your own judgment.

Which is good.

Because arranging your entire life around other people’s likes is exhausting.

And some of them have terrible taste.

Continuing directly from the INTRO and following the approved structure and voice.

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Chapter 1 - Your Imaginary Audience

You walk out of a meeting convinced something went wrong.

Nobody criticized you. Nobody interrupted you. Nobody even threw a stapler, which by modern office standards qualifies as a successful interaction. You explained your idea, answered two questions, and the meeting ended.

Then you remember Daniel’s face.

For approximately four seconds, Daniel looked unconvinced.

That is enough.

By the time you reach your desk, the presentation has become questionable. Ten minutes later, your entire contribution to the project is under review. By lunch, you are wondering whether Daniel has always considered you incompetent and has merely been waiting for the appropriate spreadsheet to reveal his true feelings.

Daniel, meanwhile, has indigestion.

This is one of the most exhausting features of needing approval: you do not only react to what people actually say. You react to what you believe they might be thinking.

That creates an interesting workplace arrangement in which other people do not even need to criticize you.

You can do it for them.

Very efficient.

The imaginary audience is the collection of people you carry around mentally when making decisions. You picture their reactions before anything has happened. What will your boss think? What will your mother say? Will your friend think this is selfish? Will your coworkers think you are lazy? Will strangers on the internet conclude that your kitchen is evidence of moral collapse because there is a dish in the sink?

The audience changes depending on the situation, but the process is similar. Instead of asking, “What do I think is reasonable?” you immediately ask, “How will this look?”

Sometimes that is useful. Social awareness prevents us from doing things such as taking conference calls on speakerphone in quiet cafés and clipping our toenails on airplanes. Civilization depends on a certain amount of concern about what other people think.

But approval-seeking takes the useful social radar and turns the sensitivity knob until you can detect disappointment from three ZIP codes away.

The first mistake is assuming you know what people are thinking.

You usually do not.

You may have clues. Someone’s tone changed. They hesitated. They gave a shorter answer than usual. They did not invite you. They did not praise you. They said, “Interesting,” which can mean anything from “This genuinely interests me” to “I am attempting to end this conversation without violating company policy.”

Clues are not conclusions.

Your brain dislikes that distinction because uncertainty is annoying. It would rather create a complete story than sit quietly with incomplete information.

So it fills in the gaps.

A friend takes longer than usual to reply.

Fact: no reply for six hours.

Story: she is annoyed.

Expanded story: she is annoyed because of dinner last Friday.

Director’s cut: everyone at dinner noticed the same thing, discussed it after you left, and there may already be a smaller group chat.

Six hours later she replies:

“Sorry, crazy day. Yes, Saturday works.”

The tribunal has adjourned.

Until the next message.

The Approval Translation Service

When approval matters too much, neutral events are often translated into negative judgments.

Someone disagrees with your idea.

Translation: They think I am stupid.

Someone chooses another restaurant.

Translation: My suggestion was bad.

Your manager edits part of your work.

Translation: I disappointed them.

A friend seems quiet.

Translation: I did something.

Someone does not laugh at your joke.

Translation: I will now move to another state.

This translation happens quickly, which is why it feels true. You rarely hear the mental machinery. You just feel the result: tension, embarrassment, guilt, urgency, or the sudden desire to explain yourself in seventeen additional sentences.

The important skill is learning to separate three things:

what happened;

what you interpreted;

what you want to do because of that interpretation.

Suppose you suggest changing the date of a family gathering. Your brother replies, “That makes things difficult for us.”

What happened? Your brother said the change creates difficulty.

Interpretation: He thinks I am selfish.

Urge: Withdraw the request immediately and tell everyone to ignore your needs.

Notice the jump.

Your brother may think you are selfish. Humans are allowed to have thoughts. He may also simply mean exactly what he said: the change makes logistics difficult.

Approval-seeking does not wait for clarification. It hears inconvenience and issues an apology before the prosecution has presented a case.

A better response might be:

“I understand. Saturday is difficult for me, so I wanted to see whether Sunday could work. If it can’t, we’ll figure out another option.”

That sentence does something approval-seekers often forget is legally permitted.

It leaves both people in the conversation.

You do not erase your need merely because someone else has one too.

The Mind-Reading Tax

Trying to predict everyone’s reactions feels like protection. If you can anticipate disapproval, maybe you can prevent it.

Unfortunately, prediction requires enormous amounts of unpaid mental labor.

You draft an email.

Then you reread it as yourself.

Then as your manager.

Then as the slightly irritable version of your manager.

Then as your manager after a bad meeting.

Then as your manager if they secretly believe your use of the phrase “moving forward” indicates a serious decline in standards.

Eventually, the email saying “Attached is the revised file” has been through more quality control than a passenger aircraft.

This is the mind-reading tax.

You pay in time, energy, indecision, and unnecessary editing.

The tax becomes especially expensive when the decision actually belongs to you. You are choosing a haircut, setting a boundary, deciding how to spend your weekend, buying a couch, changing jobs, wearing shoes, posting a picture, or declining an invitation.

Yet before you decide, an invisible committee appears.

Your mother prefers stability.

Your coworker might think the new job is risky.

Your friend dislikes that color.

Someone on Reddit once said sectional sofas are outdated.

Apparently, the couch has become a referendum.

The more imaginary voters you include, the harder it becomes to know what you want.

So here is the first practical rule of this book:

Before asking what other people will think, identify what you think.

Not because your opinion is automatically correct.

Because it should at least be present.

The Five-Second Ownership Question

When you notice yourself scanning for approval, ask:

“If nobody could react to this, what would I choose?”

Do not spend fifteen minutes answering. Give yourself about five seconds.

The purpose is not to discover your deepest authentic self through furniture selection. The purpose is to hear your preference before social forecasting drowns it out.

Examples:

If nobody could comment on where I go on vacation, where would I want to go?

If nobody could judge this purchase, would I still want it?

If nobody became disappointed, would I say yes?

If nobody saw this online, would I still enjoy doing it?

If nobody praised this work, would I still think it was good?

That question does not decide everything. Other people still matter. Budgets matter. Commitments matter. Partners matter. Children matter. Employer expectations definitely matter, especially if your preferred work schedule is “occasionally.”

But the question gives you a starting position.

Without one, negotiation turns into surrender.

Evidence Versus Imagination

For the next few days, whenever you catch yourself reacting to someone’s presumed opinion, use a small mental test:

“What evidence do I actually have?”

Not what evidence could exist.

Not what your anxiety has assembled from eyebrow movement, punctuation, and a mysterious silence at 2:14 p.m.

Actual evidence.

Daniel said, “I disagree because the cost is too high.”

Evidence.

Daniel scratched his chin.

Not particularly strong evidence.

Your friend said, “I was hurt that you canceled.”

Evidence.

Your friend used a thumbs-up emoji.

Could mean anything. Humanity has not yet established an international standard.

Your boss requested major revisions.

Evidence that the work needs revisions.

Not automatic evidence that your boss regrets hiring you and has begun removing your name from company history.

This distinction sounds simple. It is simple.

Simple does not mean automatic.

Approval-seeking becomes powerful precisely because interpretations happen before conscious thought catches up. The goal is not to eliminate the first reaction. The goal is to stop turning the first reaction into immediate action.

Add a delay.

If you feel the urge to apologize, explain, change your decision, send another message, or ask, “Are you mad at me?” because of something ambiguous, wait twenty minutes when circumstances allow.

During those twenty minutes, write two lines:

FACT: INTERPRETATION:

Example:

FACT: She replied “Sure” instead of her usual longer message.

INTERPRETATION: She is irritated with me.

That little gap is surprisingly effective because your brain hates being asked to label its fan fiction.

Plan B: When You Cannot Stop Analyzing

Sometimes twenty minutes do not help.

You know the interpretation is uncertain. You know you are mind-reading. You know Daniel probably does not spend his evenings maintaining a detailed file titled “Reasons Melissa Is Disappointing.”

Your body does not care.

Fine.

Do not try to convince yourself that everything is wonderful.

Use a neutral statement:

“I do not currently know what this means.”

That is enough.

Not:

“She definitely likes me.”

Not:

“I am sure everything is fine.”

Those are just positive guesses competing with negative guesses.

The goal is not to replace one imaginary story with a more cheerful imaginary story.

The goal is to stop pretending you possess information you do not have.

If the issue matters, clarify directly.

“You seemed concerned in the meeting. Was there something about the proposal you think we should change?”

Notice what is missing.

No twelve-minute confession.

No “I may be completely overthinking this and I’m sorry if I’m being annoying but…”

Ask the question.

Receive the information.

Continue with your life.

Minimum Version for Low-Energy Days

If all of this feels like too much work, use the smallest version:

Before changing your behavior because of someone’s reaction, ask:

“Did they actually say that?”

If the answer is no, pause.

That is the entire exercise.

You do not need a journal, an app, a worksheet, or a special pen manufactured from ethically sourced bamboo.

Just ask the question.

Did they actually say that?

You will be surprised how often the answer is:

“No, but they looked…”

Stop there.

Faces are not legally binding documents.

The imaginary audience will not disappear overnight. You have probably spent years consulting it. It has opinions about your clothes, career, relationships, messages, vacations, spending, parenting, house, body, hobbies, and possibly the way you cut onions.

You do not need to fire the audience.

You just need to stop giving it voting rights before anyone has actually spoken.

Today’s action: catch one moment when you assume what someone thinks. Separate the fact from the interpretation, then delay your response long enough to see the difference.

Your brain may complain.

It has become attached to running investigations nobody requested.

Chapter 2 - Approval Is Not Evidence

Imagine that you spend three weeks preparing something important.

Maybe it is a proposal at work. Maybe it is a creative project. Maybe you finally repaint the living room after six months of comparing shades that all appear to be called things like Gentle Linen, Morning Fog, and Financial Regret.

You finish.

You look at the result.

You like it.

Then somebody else sees it and says:

“Huh.”

That is all.

Not “terrible.”

Not “I hate it.”

Not even “Why does your home now resemble the waiting room of a dentist who has given up?”

Just:

“Huh.”

Suddenly, the thing you liked eleven seconds ago becomes suspicious.

This is another central feature of approval dependence: your own judgment feels temporary until somebody else confirms it.

Approval becomes evidence.

Praise means the decision was good.

Disapproval means the decision was bad.

No reaction means further investigation is required.

This system seems logical until you notice what it requires: other people must constantly certify your choices.

You become the manufacturer of your own life, but everyone else runs quality control.

Why Reassurance Feels So Powerful

Suppose you send an important email and immediately think, “That sounded stupid.”

You show it to a colleague.

“Does this sound okay?”

They read it.

“It’s fine.”

Relief.

Beautiful, immediate relief.

Your shoulders drop. Civilization survives. You return to work.

Thirty minutes later:

“Fine” is not necessarily “good,” though.

Maybe they were busy.

Maybe they did not read carefully.

Maybe you should ask someone else.

This is why reassurance can become addictive.

It works.

Briefly.

That matters because behaviors are strengthened by what happens immediately afterward. If asking for reassurance reduces discomfort, your brain learns:

Excellent. When uncertain, ask another person to remove the uncertainty.

The next time discomfort appears, you want reassurance sooner.

Eventually you are not asking because you genuinely need information. You are asking because you want the uncomfortable feeling to stop.

Those are different goals.

Useful feedback improves the decision.

Reassurance often improves the feeling.

For fourteen minutes.

Then the warranty expires.

The Approval Loop

The loop usually looks like this:

You make a decision.

You feel uncertain.

You seek approval.

You receive approval.

You feel better.

Your brain learns that feeling better required external confirmation.

Next time, your confidence arrives even weaker.

So you seek more approval.

This can happen with almost anything.

“Do you think I should send this?”

“Do I look okay?”

“Was that rude?”

“Do you think they’re angry?”

“Was my presentation good?”

“Should I buy this?”

“Do you think I handled that correctly?”

“Does this text sound weird?”

None of those questions is inherently a problem.

Sometimes asking is smart. If you are about to send a sensitive message to the CEO announcing that the quarterly forecast “looks kind of vibey,” please seek a second opinion.

The issue is repetition and purpose.

Are you gathering information?

Or are you borrowing confidence?

Borrowed Confidence

Borrowed confidence is confidence that exists only while somebody else is holding it for you.

Your friend says the outfit looks good.

You believe it.

Then another friend looks less enthusiastic.

The confidence disappears.

Your manager praises the report.

Excellent.

Then they make one correction.

Maybe the entire report was garbage.

Your partner says dinner was delicious.

Wonderful.

Then they add salt.

Betrayal.

When approval becomes the foundation of confidence, contradictory opinions feel dangerous because you have no internal reference point.

This is why approval-seeking can make decision-making absurdly difficult. You ask three people for advice and receive three different answers.

Now what?

You ask two more.

Naturally.

Soon you have created a focus group for whether you should buy a blue jacket.

One person says blue suits you.

One prefers black.

Someone says you already own too many jackets.

Your sister sends a link to a completely different jacket.

Your friend asks why you are talking about jackets at 11:40 p.m.

You began with uncertainty.

You now have a research department.

The Approval Budget

Not every opinion deserves equal weight.

This sounds obvious until you look at how people actually behave.

A random comment from a coworker can sometimes outweigh the opinion of the person making the decision.

You.

To fix this, create an approval budget.

Do not literally calculate dollars. Nobody needs another spreadsheet.

The idea is simple: decide in advance whose opinion matters for a particular category.

For example:

Work quality: your manager; relevant colleagues; clients when appropriate.

Medical decision: qualified medical professional; possibly trusted people involved in your care.

Major shared financial decision: you; your partner if finances are shared; qualified professional when necessary.

Your haircut: primarily you; possibly the person cutting it.

Your haircut does not require input from Greg in accounting.

Greg has enough going on.

The mistake is allowing everyone into every category.

Your mother’s opinion may matter deeply to you. That does not make her an expert on your career.

Your friend may be brilliant at business. That does not mean she should determine whether you stay in a relationship.

Your coworker may think your hobby is strange.

Excellent.

It remains your hobby.

A useful question is:

“Does this person have responsibility, expertise, or meaningful involvement in the outcome?”

If yes, their opinion deserves weight.

If not, their opinion may still be interesting.

Interesting is not binding.

Build Your Own First Draft

Before asking anyone for advice about a decision, create your own first draft.

Write or state:

“My current preference is X because Y.”

Example:

“My current preference is to decline the extra project because I already have two deadlines and taking it would mean working most of the weekend.”

Then ask for input if you need it.

This changes the entire dynamic.

Without a first draft, you approach someone saying:

“What should I do?”

With a first draft, you say:

“I’m leaning toward declining because of workload. Am I missing something important?”

One version hands them the steering wheel.

The other asks them to check the map.

This is especially important when you tend to adopt the opinion of whoever spoke last.

Some people do this so automatically that their preferences appear to have Bluetooth.

Connected to nearest available device.

Try the One-Person Rule

For small and medium decisions, limit yourself to one person for outside input.

One.

Not four.

Not the group chat.