If you have such fears, it could be both a need for approval and the need to be perfect, because of your low self-esteem and lack of confidence in yourself. Needs that keep you firmly in your tracks, dogged by fear, until the significant others tells you it is okay. But we cannot stop people from being disappointed in us because each person has a different expectation of us, a different aim for us and a different perception of whom we should be. Only self-belief and the realisation that no one is better than anyone else should guide your actions. While we all seek approval when we are younger, which is natural to bond with our parents, a sign of maturity and independence is the desire to seek personal approval only through self-belief and self-appreciation.

Your fear of disapproval perhaps helps you to project your thoughts of feeling inadequate on to the people you are trying to please or impress, in fact, deciding how they are going to regard you, making up their mind for them, judging yourself harshly for them, and having expectations on their behalf in your desire to control their reactions favourably. The only advice is: Lay it down, and start being you. Perfection has control and conformity at its centre, and it does not allow for mistakes, risk taking, innovation or genuine self-realisation, either. Worst of all, it causes much stress – and stress ages you and shortens your life!

Perhaps it is time to keep asking yourself what is the worst that can happen when someone is upset with you? Keep asking it of everyone you fear and see how you would deal with the perceived consequences. That is how you build your confidence and self-worth, by facing the worst scenarios and dealing with them, either physically or mentally. Not from shying away from life and dreading the experiences. You will then gradually discover what you really fear about a lack of approval and be able to do something about it.

Perhaps you could start by acknowledging that there is no such thing as perfection. It is an unreachable state. We are made as fallible people so that we can forever GROW and develop into wonderful beings. When we focus on perfection, and fulfilling exactly what other people want, we rob our lives of the little imperfect things which make it magical. We forget that whatever we do someone else is likely to better it, or to take it to new heights of excellence. We also forget that, if we were granted our wish to be perfect, there would be nothing left to do in life, except to stagnate in a huge void of meaningless existence.

I always ask myself which I would rather be: Green and growing, and ready to learn, or ripe and rotting and knowing it all? because perfection is the end state, not the beginning. We are so afraid to upset others, or vice versa, we stay in the same habitual rut, doing he same actions and getting the same results without even knowing why.

You start to fix perfection by living a little, letting your hair down sometimes, and not trying too hard to please. By just being YOU. That’s the only sure way to appreciate yourself more. You will gradually lose the intense desire to impress others because you will be at peace with you, and their expectations will come second or lower in the scheme of your life.

Please remember, that you might try to please people as often as you can, but the day you cannot genuinely please them, they really won’t understand it, and you will be mud in their eyes, anyway! Best to please yourself because those who like you as you are will flock to you, and those who don’t will give you a wide berth, and good riddance to them, anyway, if all they will do is drag you down or be negative to you.

BEFORE YOU GO…..