Now I am in an environment where people say “thank you” to me all the time, so I don’t need to satisfy my need for approval.
However, in the past, I had a need for someone else’s approval.
In this article, I will try to write about how I have changed from that old me.
My past, where I had the desire to be recognized.
When I was in my teens and early thirties, I was
- “I want to be accepted by someone.”
- “I want to be needed.”
- “I want more praise.”
- “I want people to think I’m great.”
- “I want to show why I exist.”
I had such desires.
In Japan, this is called “desire for approval.
Why did I have these desires when I was young?
And how did I let go of these cravings?
First, I would like to write about why the flow of approval cravings was created.
How the need for approval was born.
When I was a child, I was not very smart, not very athletic, and rarely received good evaluations from those around me.
When I saw kids who were fast on their feet being praised, I thought to myself, “That’s nice, I wonder if I will be praised like that when I become fast on my feet too.
When I saw kids who got good grades, were strong in fights, or were popular, I would look at them and think, “That’s nice, I wish everyone would think of me like that.
In other words, I was comparing myself to others and assigning superiority or inferiority.
Therefore, I always felt that I was inferior to someone else.
However, in the process of growing up, I was sometimes praised by someone.
For example, how well I could sing a song or how fast I could learn a job.
At that time, I would swing the other way and say, “I am superior compared to someone else.
In other words, the inferiority I had felt up to that point was rebounding.
When I think to myself, “I’m really good! I was able to get a pleasant feeling when I thought, “I am great after all!
And I want to experience that feeling again,
- I want more and more compliments!
- I want to be thought of as even more amazing!
This awareness becomes stronger.
I think that incident triggered my desire for approval.
The backlash when one’s needs can no longer be met.
If you continue to satisfy your need for recognition, there is a huge backlash when you stand in a situation where you don’t get it.
You feel as if you have fallen into hell.
For example, when I was making money in online advertising, I was aware that I was seen as someone who could do the work.
That was a great feeling.
But when I stopped making money, it was very painful and humiliating to be seen as a “failure,” and I hated it so much that I wanted to turn my head away from reality.
I hated it so much that I wanted to turn my head away from reality and say, “I’m no good at this anymore…”
I felt like my self-confidence, which I had built up over the years, was crumbling with a clattering sound.
This is what happens when the desire to be recognized is continually satisfied and the desire can no longer be satisfied.
In a sense, this is a phenomenon of karma coming back to you.
It is like reaping by yourself the seeds you have sown.
How the desire for approval came to nothing.
There came a time for me to leave my online advertising job and think, “Let’s do something useful for people.
I used to be a singer, so I started to create a website to help people with voice training.
That was the start of me being on the side of supporting someone else.
When I focused on supporting someone else, strangely enough, I no longer compared myself to anyone else, and I no longer had the desire to be recognized.
Why is that?
I think it was because I focused my attention not on satisfying my own needs, but on what others wanted.
In other words, I was anticipating the minds of people I had yet to meet and creating a helpful voice training website.
Then, inevitably, I got a lot of “thank yous”.
At that time, I had no desire to be recognized, so I did not get any particular pleasure from the “thank yous.
I was not attached to that helpful voice training website or to getting “thank yous” from people.
So when it came time for me to move on, I was able to let it go easily.
The fear of not being recognized creates an obsession.
What is the difference between the person I was when I wanted to satisfy my need for approval and the person I am now when I no longer need to satisfy my need for approval?
I think the fear of not being recognized someday became my obsession to satisfy my need for approval.
But after I created my voice training website, I think the feeling I had was, In the future, the words ‘thank you’ will always be a part of me.
It is such a feeling that “thank you” enters me as a matter of course, just like breathing.
It is a feeling that I don’t have to try to fill it anymore because it always comes in.
A stage in life where words of gratitude are constantly coming in.
To be able to support someone with the awareness of wanting to support someone else means that the words “thank you” are always coming in.
It really is a strange feeling.
If I had known this law from the beginning, I might not have suffered from the need for approval.
But because I suffered through that stage, I may have been able to walk the path to freedom from that suffering.
I also learned that there is a stage beyond that path where words of gratitude come in all the time, all the time.
I am now in the business of changing people’s lives for the better.
I hope to do this work in the future so that I can receive many “Thank yous” as if it were a natural feeling, just as if I were breathing.