Here’s Why Approval Can’t Be Your Ultimate Goal

Step 1:

Ask yourself, did I actually do anything disrespectful to this person who does not seem to like me? If you feel like the answer is YES, Maybe it is time to chat with that person about the situation and hopefully resolve it. Apologize when necessary and be careful not to hold on to bitterness.  

 

Step 2: 

If you feel like the answer is NO: Then maybe this person just isn’t your person, and that’s OKAY!! There may be a reason that you guys don’t jive. You just want to make sure you don’t start making compromises with who you are to make this person like you. You win some, and you lose some! All this says is that we are all different and some people click and connect more than others.

 

Why Approval Can’t be Your Goal: 

If you make the approval of others your ultimate goal, how many different masks will you have to end up wearing?! If you are with one person, you will wear one mask and a different mask with another person. HOW EXHAUSTING!! After you have done that for a while, you have entirely lost sight of who you are. You are completely dissociated without any integrity. 

 

What is integrity? Integrity is being the same and having the same honesty, perspective, reliability in every circumstance. It’s this rock that you can stand upon that says THIS IS WHO I AM. The people around me can rely on that, and I can depend on that.

 

If we are shifting every which way to please the people around us in a given moment, we don’t have any integrity, which costs us something! As a result, we live in a place where we are confused and displeased. There is a lot of anxiety trying to keep up with “Who am I today with the people I am around?”. Ultimately, you know at your core that the people that say they care about you only care about that version of you. At the end of the day, you are not accepted for who you are but for an alternate version of you.

 

So I want you to ask yourself, WHAT WOULD IT TAKE TO ROOT MYSELF IN AN IDENTITY THAT IS AN ETERNAL IDENTITY, FORMED BY WHO GOD SAYS THAT I AM? You can confidently walk that path. As you walk that path, you will interact with people respectfully, with honor, love, and integrity. If people choose not to do life with you, then that is okay and you can love them anyway, but you can move on, which does not mean that you are a terrible person.