Episode 256 Transcript: How to Stop Chasing Approval and Start Choosing Yourself
00:00:03:20 – 00:00:38:08
Nancy Levin
Welcome back to The Nancy Levin Show. Today we’re talking about what happens when you’re no longer willing to live for the approval of others. Because there comes a point where approval starts to feel too expensive. Maybe for a long time, approval was the thing you organized your life around. Being liked, being wanted, being chosen, being seen as good, as helpful, as easy.
00:00:38:11 – 00:01:08:00
Being seen as the one who could be counted on, the one who would not rock the boat, the one who would not ask for too much. And maybe you got really good at it. Maybe you became incredibly skilled at reading the room, at anticipating needs, at shapeshifting, at softening yourself, at making sure everyone else was okay. Maybe your approval strategy looked like people-pleasing.
00:01:08:02 – 00:01:40:13
Maybe it looked like overachieving, maybe it looked like perfectionism. Maybe it looked like being endlessly available. Maybe it looked like being quiet. Maybe it looked like saying yes when everything inside of you was saying no. Whatever shape it took, the function was the same. Approval became the way you tried to secure love, belonging, safety and worth. And again, this is not something to judge.
00:01:40:15 – 00:02:03:10
There is a reason approval strategies are rarely random. They are adaptations. They are ways that you learn to survive, ways you learn to stay connected, ways you learn to avoid rejection, criticism, conflict, or abandonment.
00:02:03:12 – 00:02:43:05
I never want you to think that approval-seeking is a shallow, bad habit, because it’s much deeper than that. It’s actually a very intelligent survival strategy that became overused. And what once protected you eventually began to imprison you, because the problem with building your life around approval is that approval is unstable. It changes. It depends on other people.
00:02:43:12 – 00:03:21:21
It requires performance. It asks you to keep being who you have been, even if that version of you no longer feels true. And at some point, the cost becomes unbearable. Because you start realizing that you’re not actually free. You’re curated, you’re managed, you’re edited, you’re filtered. And maybe people approve of you, but you don’t actually feel known by them, because they’re often approving the version of you that has been carefully arranged for acceptance.
00:03:21:23 – 00:03:50:18
And that is lonely. Even if you’re surrounded by people, even if you’re successful, even if you’re praised, even if you are admired. It is lonely to be loved for who you’re pretending to be. And this is where so many people begin to wake up. They wake up to the realization that approval has become too expensive. Too expensive in energy.
00:03:50:18 – 00:04:35:16
Too expensive in truth. Too expensive in self-respect. Too expensive in aliveness. Because every time you abandon yourself for approval, you reinforce the false idea that who you are needs adjusting, softening, improving, hiding. And over time that becomes painful, deeply painful. So today, I want to talk about what happens when you are no longer willing to live this way. When approval is no longer enough of a reward to justify the cost. Because that is the threshold, and it changes things. And it doesn’t mean that the desire for approval disappears overnight.
00:04:35:19 – 00:05:01:18
It doesn’t mean that you suddenly stop caring what anyone else thinks. It doesn’t mean that fear is going to vanish. But what it means is that something more true begins to matter more. Your integrity begins to matter more. Your peace begins to matter more. Your self-respect begins to matter more. Your truth begins to matter more than being well received.
00:05:01:21 – 00:05:10:22
And that is a profound shift. It’s the shift from performing to presence.
00:05:10:24 – 00:05:47:14
The shift from managing perception to honoring reality. The shift from, “Will they still like me?” to “Can I stay with myself if I keep doing this?” And this is a very different orientation. And once that question becomes real for you, once self-abandonment becomes more painful than disapproval, your life begins to change. Sometimes quietly, sometimes dramatically. But it changes because you stop being available for the old bargains.
00:05:47:21 – 00:06:18:26
The bargain that says, “I will silence myself so you will stay.” The bargain that says, “I will over give, so you will approve.” The bargain that says, “I will shape shift so I can belong.” The bargain that says, “I will be who you need me to be if it means I don’t lose connection.” And at some point you see the bargaining clearly, and seeing it clearly is everything.
00:06:18:28 – 00:06:47:21
Because once you see the bargain, you can no longer pretend that it’s love. You can no longer confuse self-erasure with connection. You can no longer confuse being useful with being valued. You can no longer confuse being chosen with choosing yourself. This awakening matters, because it gives you a new choice. Not an easy one, but a real one.
00:06:47:23 – 00:07:24:12
Do I continue arranging myself for approval, or do I begin the very tender, very brave work of standing in my own truth? And that work is tender, because when you stop living for approval, grief will arise. Grief over the years you’ve spent trying to earn what you never needed to earn. Grief over how much energy it took. Grief over how often you left yourself. Grief over the relationships that may not survive your honesty.
00:07:24:14 – 00:07:59:29
Grief over the identities that have to fall away. There’s grief and there’s freedom, too. Because approval seeking keeps you externally oriented, always scanning, hypervigilant, always adjusting, always measuring yourself through the eyes of others. And when that begins to soften, something incredibly beautiful happens. Your attention begins to come back to you. You start asking different questions. Not, “What do they want from me?” but “What is true for me?”
00:08:00:01 – 00:08:32:02
Not, “How do I stay liked?” but “What am I no longer willing to do just to be approved of and accepted?” Not, “What will make them comfortable?” but “What allows me to remain in integrity with myself?” And these are life-changing questions, because they move you from external approval to internal authority. And internal authority is grounded, self-trusting, self-honoring.
00:08:32:04 – 00:09:05:22
It’s willing to tell the truth even when the truth changes the relationship. And yes, that can be scary. Because when you stop living for approval, some people may not know what to do with you. Some people might be disappointed, some people might be in resistance. Some people may miss the version of you that was easier for them to access, and that can be painful. Especially if your nervous system is still wired to equate approval with safety.
00:09:05:24 – 00:09:40:00
So this is not about pretending it doesn’t matter. It does matter. It matters because you’re human. But there’s a difference between feeling the ache of disapproval and making disapproval your decision maker. And that difference is everything. If you are listening and recognizing yourself here in the shapeshifting, in the performing, in the fatigue of trying to be what everybody else wants, in the longing to come back to yourself in your own truth.
00:09:40:03 – 00:10:20:06
I invite you to join me for Reignite Your Spark. This is my free, five-day experience designed to help you reconnect with yourself, your truth, your desires, your voice. The part of you that’s ready to stop living on autopilot and start living for what is real. This is not about becoming someone new. It’s about returning to yourself. You can join me at nancylevin.com/spark. Five days, completely free, five short emails, videos for me and prompts to support you in reconnecting with you.
00:10:20:09 – 00:10:50:25
Join me at nancylevin.com/spark and I’ll meet you in your inbox. Okay, we’re going to continue here. And I want to share something that I really want you to listen to. When you stop living for approval, it doesn’t mean you stop caring. What it means is you stop outsourcing your worth. And that’s the difference. You can care and still choose yourself.
00:10:50:28 – 00:11:21:17
You can feel tenderness and still hold a boundary. You can love someone and still tell the truth. You can want that connection and still refuse self-abandonment. This is about becoming less available for distortion. And that means getting honest about the ways approval has shaped your life. Where have you said yes for approval? Where have you stayed quiet for approval?
00:11:21:21 – 00:11:55:20
Where have you over-given for approval? Where have you minimized yourself for approval? Where have you confused being needed with being loved? Where have you made your own needs disappear because you were more committed to being accepted than being true? Once you start seeing where approval has been driving your choices, you can begin making different ones. And one of the most important pieces of this is learning to tolerate being misunderstood.
00:11:55:23 – 00:12:26:22
That is such a big part of freedom. Because as long as you need everyone to understand in order to stay grounded in your truth, you will keep explaining, you will keep proving, you will keep shrinking, you will keep managing perception. But freedom often asks you to let yourself be misunderstood. Not because misunderstanding feels good, but because your truth does not become less true, simply because someone else cannot meet it.
00:12:26:22 – 00:12:59:17
The willingness to let your life be guided by what is true, rather than by what is most easily approved of, brings us to self-worth. Because when your self-worth is outsourced, approval becomes addictive. You need the feedback. You need the praise. You need the reassurance. You need the confirmation that you’re okay. But when self-worth begins to root inside of you, approval loses some of its grip.
00:12:59:20 – 00:13:33:29
Not all at once, but gradually. Because you’re no longer asking other people to tell you whether you’re allowed to exist as you are. You begin granting that permission to yourself. And that changes the entire quality of your life. You become more honest, more clear, more available for true intimacy. More able to choose based on alignment rather than optics. More willing to disappoint someone else rather than disappear from yourself.
00:13:34:06 – 00:14:06:09
And yes, there is discomfort in this. But there is so much freedom as well, because living for approval is exhausting and expensive. It’s exhausting to monitor yourself all the time. To filter your truth. To rehearse how you will be perceived. To carry everyone else’s emotional response as if it’s your responsibility. To make your choices based on what will be least disruptive for everyone else.
00:14:06:11 – 00:14:42:23
And eventually, something in you gets tired enough to want another way. And that moment, my dear, is sacred. Because it means your deeper self is surfacing. The self beneath the performance. The self beneath the conditioning. The self beneath the approval seeking. And that self is not interested in living a managed life forever. That self wants truth. that self wants congruence. That self wants to be able to breathe inside your own life.
00:14:42:26 – 00:15:07:20
And if that’s where you are, if you are at the point where approval feels too expensive, too exhausting, then maybe the question is no longer, “How do I keep everyone happy?” And the question instead is, “What am I no longer willing to do in order to be liked?” And that is a powerful threshold question, because every answer leads you back to you.
00:15:07:23 – 00:15:36:21
I’m no longer willing to silence myself. I’m no longer willing to say yes when I mean no. I’m no longer willing to over-give and call it love. I’m no longer willing to perform wellness, performance, capability, ease, goodness while I’m suffering underneath. I’m no longer willing to stay quiet in relationships or roles that require me to abandon myself.
00:15:36:24 – 00:16:14:15
This is where freedom begins. Not in everyone approving of your truth, but in you no longer withholding it from yourself. So as we come to a close, I leave you with this. Approval might feel good, but self-respect is a deeper goodness. Approval may create temporary relief, but integrity creates inner peace. Approval may keep things smooth on the surface, but truth creates a life you can actually live inside of.
00:16:14:18 – 00:16:52:18
So if you’re no longer willing to live for approval, trust it. Even if it feels messy. Even if it feels tender. Even if it changes things. Trust it. Because the part of you that is weary of performing is not broken. It’s wise. It’s calling you back. Back to your voice. Back to your center. Back to your inner authority. Back to the life that becomes possible when you stop asking permission to be yourself and give yourself the permission to be true to you.
00:16:52:21 – 00:17:07:16
And so glad you decided to spend this time with me today. Thank you for being here. I’ll be with you again next week. And in the meantime, continue giving yourself permission to choose truth over approval.