I never liked the term “people pleaser” because it sounds like a weakness and I was glad I didn’t have it.

But I’ve recently had a sobering realization. 

I’m an approval seeker.

And it’s the same thing, just a different name.

I’ve enrolled my dog, Atlas, in a sport called Rally. Together we navigate a course and he performs 15 different maneuvers at specific markers. 

I’ve been more focused on the judge’s approval than on my own sense of how far we’ve come.

He’s doing beautifully, improving every week, and yet I’m focused on getting official approval on every obstacle. When it doesn’t come a voice inside my head says, “What was wrong with that?”

What It Cost Me 

I started thinking back to my first business from the perspective of the Observer, the part of us that can notice patterns with curiosity.

I looked at all the ways I changed what I said or did to win the approval of other people.

And all the things I didn’t do because I was afraid I wouldn’t get it.

Even strangers. People I’d never met. Imaginary people who lived only in my head.

In business we call these prospects and we can manufacture their rejection before it even happens. 

I resisted inbound marketing and lead magnets, not because they didn’t work, but because I didn’t want to look like that kind of business owner.

What stopped me was the thought that people would think less of me. That’s approval-seeking.

I saw other businesses do it and I thought they were trying too hard. They weren’t as serious as we were and I thought their tactics seemed cheap and desperate.

I told myself it wasn’t my style. But really I was just worried what people would think.

I forced myself to do a few webinars, checklists and quizzes, but I wasn’t consistent.

My business grew slower because of what I thought people I didn’t even know would think about me.

I’m not saying marketing has to be done in any specific way, but if you want to grow your business, people do have to know about it. 

I didn’t do more to elevate our profile because my belief in myself and my business wasn’t strong enough. 

And when it came to raising our prices, approval-seeking kept me stuck for a long time. 

In my mind I’d hear them say, “How could you be so greedy? Don’t you value our business? We can find someone for less.”

During one five-year period, I didn’t raise our prices once. When you consider the cost of living goes up every year, we weren’t even keeping up with inflation.

All because I wanted approval.

It makes sense when you think about it. Approval-seeking is practically hard-wired. For most of human history, exclusion from the tribe meant death.  

And when we were children, approval from our parents didn’t just feel good. It felt essential for survival. 

It’s not a character flaw or a weakness. It’s just a program that once had a purpose, but no longer needs to run our lives.

Not All Approval Is Good

Sometimes it’s actually a good thing not to get approval. 

I remember losing a big contract and feeling devastated by the overt lack of approval. I made it mean we weren’t good enough.

Later I found out the key players were fired for shady dealings. If we had been selected, our reputation might have been tarnished by association. 

That experience taught me something important: not all approval is worth having.

Your Own Approval 

Here’s what I know now:

Your own approval is the one that matters most.

Do you approve of the way your business helps your customers? Do you approve of your team? Do you approve of yourself?

Because until you approve of these things, you’ll seek external approval instead.

And this doesn’t mean you, your team and your solutions have to be perfect. No.

It means you feel good about your trajectory as a work in progress. It means you believe in your business.

Looking back, approval-seeking cost me more than growth and money. It cost me self-trust. 

It made me doubt my own judgment. It kept me from taking risks that would help me grow. It reinforced that other people’s opinions were more important than my own. 

The Belief Standard

Here’s how strongly you must believe in your business: 

Like you have the cure for cancer.

If you had the cure for cancer you would tell everyone about it. 

You wouldn’t care if some people didn’t listen. 

You’d totally understand that if they don’t have cancer then what you’re saying just isn’t relevant to them. 

But you’d keep talking about it as much as possible so that those who did need to hear it would. 

You wouldn’t stress out every day about doing it perfectly. 

You wouldn’t worry if they were skeptical and didn’t believe you. 

You’d still keep talking about it.

Even if they didn’t approve. 

Even if some people made fun of the way you explained it. 

You’d still keep talking about it, and get better at connecting with the people who really need it.

You would care more about helping them than looking good.

That’s how much you have to believe in what you do. 

The answer isn’t to get better at winning approval. It’s to increase your belief in yourself, your team, and your solutions, so that your own approval is enough.