Arti Sharma’s heart was in music, but she decided to pursue medicine because both her parents were doctors and she was expected to follow suit. By becoming a doctor, she managed to get the approval of others but lost herself in the process. Was the trade-off worth it? Arti now lives with regret, dreaming of how fulfilling her life would have been if she had listened to her heart instead of the voices around her.
Rakesh Dev carefully measures every word before speaking to friends and family. He sugar-coats everything to avoid offending anyone. When someone disagrees with his views, he quickly backtracks and aligns himself with their perspective. This constant self-editing has left Rakesh emotionally exhausted, with fractured self-esteem and barely any confidence in his own judgment.
Both Arti and Rakesh share a common burden: they have handed over the steering wheel of their lives to other people, or more specifically, to what the others think of them.
The Trap of External Validation
There’s a book titled What You Think of Me is None of My Business by Terry Cole Whittaker. I haven’t read it, so I can’t speak to its content, but the title alone captures something profound. Some might find it arrogant, but I think it’s both witty and wise. The title points to a fundamental truth we rarely acknowledge: we consistently place other people’s opinions ahead of our own judgment.
“People striving for approval from others become phony,” observes Japanese-born baseball champion Ichiro Suzuki. This phoniness doesn’t develop overnight. It’s carefully cultivated from childhood, both at home and in school. We learn early that maintaining our image matters more than expressing our truth. Being obedient and behaving “appropriately” earns rewards, while speaking our minds or following our instincts brings disapproval.
This conditioning runs so deep that we carry it into every major decision of our adult lives. We choose careers, relationships, and life paths not because they align with our values, but because they won’t disappoint others. We become so preoccupied with external judgment that we allow other people’s approval to dictate our entire existence.
The Hidden Cost of People Pleasing
Consider this moment: how many of your recent decisions were truly your own? Strip away the voices of parents, friends, society, and strangers. What remains? You might discover that much of your current reality stems from choices that didn’t originate from within you.
When we reshape ourselves to earn approval, we set ourselves up for failure on two fronts. First, it’s impossible to please everyone consistently. Second, we become easy targets for manipulation. People quickly learn that the threat of disapproval can control our behavior.
Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway understands this dynamic well: “There’s something very addictive about people pleasing. It’s a thought pattern and a habit that feels really, really good until it becomes desperate.”
Dr. Nicole LePera, a holistic psychologist and self-described “recovered people pleaser,” offers an even sharper insight: “People pleasers aren’t trying to please other people. They’re trying to avoid their own feelings of shame when they disappoint someone. Every people pleaser has one core goal: control how another person views them.”
This perspective might sting, but it reveals the self-deception at the heart of people pleasing. We convince ourselves we’re being kind or considerate, but we’re actually trying to manipulate how others see us. The irony is devastating: the moment we show our authentic selves, those we’ve worked so hard to impress often feel deceived by the gap between our performed and genuine personalities.
The Price of Self-Betrayal
Every time you sacrifice your interests to please another person, you erode your self-worth and compromise your potential for genuine fulfillment. You signal to yourself that your thoughts, dreams, and instincts matter less than someone else’s comfort. This isn’t humility; it’s self-abandonment.
Over time, this pattern of people pleasing transforms your life into a performance designed by committee. You lose touch with your authentic preferences, your natural responses, your unguarded thoughts. You become a stranger to yourself, living as a shadow of other people’s expectations rather than the author of your own story.
Breaking Free
This doesn’t mean you should ignore all feedback or become indifferent to others’ feelings. Healthy relationships involve mutual consideration and respect. But there’s a crucial difference between being thoughtful and being controlled by the fear of disapproval.
Appreciate praise when it comes genuinely, but don’t rearrange your life’s priorities to manufacture it. Remember that living for applause is a form of voluntary imprisonment. The people whose approval you’re chasing are often dealing with their own insecurities and may not even be qualified to judge what’s right for your life.
You came here to discover who you are and what you’re capable of becoming. Don’t spend your precious time on earth living out someone else’s script. Your authentic self, with all its imperfections and unique perspectives, deserves better than that.
My humble suggestion is to try trusting your own judgment and living according to your own values. It won’t always be comfortable, and not everyone will approve. But at least the life you’re living will be genuinely yours.
A version of this article was published in the July 2013 issue of Complete Wellbeing.
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