Get Rid Of Your Approval Addiction, Build Empowering Relationships, And Stand Up For Yourself Without Losing Your Self-Respect

Tired of not being able to stand up for yourself for the fear of losing the friendship or the relationship?

Tired of getting your emotions best out of you?

I know how it is to be in your shoes.

But everything feels like a temporary solution. Nothing sticks. Nothing feels permanent.

Now you firmly believe this is your “nature”.

And you have accepted the “harsh truth” that you have to keep living this way.

But all of that bullshit stops today…

No more worrying that you’re not good enough.

No more worrying about what others think of you.

No more replaying the scenarios in your mind and beating yourself up for standing up for yourself.

Sounds great right?

Nash is an NRI entrepreneur based in the US.

On the surface, everything seemed to be going great in his life.

He is financially well off. He keeps his own hours and loves traveling.

But start digging and you would find out that things were not as they seemed.

You see, Nash was addicted to approval.

He used to spend his time and energy on others - without a care for his own well-being.

And people were taking advantage of this.

Money requests from his distant relatives for shady business ventures.

Getting dragged into land deals.

You get the gist...

And he used to say yes to all of them, helplessly.

Because saying no was difficult for him.

And he couldn’t figure out a way to get out of this rut.

He used to think that there can be only two outcomes from a conflict.

Either give in to the unjust demand.

Or give in to an angry, emotional outburst and cut ties forever. And then nurse the feelings of guilt and regret.

He was exhausted from playing the same role again and again.

He couldn’t take one more day of others taking advantage of him.

And he couldn’t take one more day of him feeling helpless against those attempts.

This is when he reached out to me and we decided to work together.

Immediately, we figured out a framework to handle difficult conversations.

One that keeps him emotionally grounded and allows him to play on his strengths.

He learned to identify his cognitive distortions.  And he learned to separate efforts from outcomes. 

He learned how to reject ideas from someone without rejecting the person.

He learned to be responsible for his own well-being and not just delegate it to others.

We also worked on developing boundaries with bad habits like chewing on the past.

Within a couple of sessions, I could see that Nash had started to feel relaxed. I could see his anxieties about the obligation to cater to everyone vanishing.

He immediately started applying the lessons – and started calling in past dues or refusing new requests.

He started feeling more confident, and more in control while dealing with the pesky money requests.

He started believing in his own power and his own resourcefulness.

Today, things have turned around for Nash.

He has built amazing dreams and goals for himself and is striving towards them daily.

He enjoys an amazing relationship with his extended family and completely on his own terms.

He is also able to cater to his innate needs for kindness and empathy without compromising his own well-being.

Today Nash has tools and strategies that help him tap into his own power.

He has overcome his approval addiction.

Here’s the interview that I did with Nash:

Now I know the question that has plagued you throughout your life…

Why am I like this?

Why do I have troubles speaking up when no one else?

Well, I have the answer for you.

Here’s what approval addiction looks like:

So are you to blame?

Hell no.

The culprit is that little voice in the back of your mind - the product of your upbringing.

• It’s abusive, overly critical or neglectful parents.
• It's parents who are emotionally immature and who have no idea how to fulfill their children’s needs and connect with them.
• It’s the shame that society heaps on you when you dare to be less than perfect.
• It’s the guilt that is placed on you when you try to look out for your own best interest.
• The knee-jerk reaction that people around you give when you finally try to change your ways

They all lead to forming beliefs that sabotage you at every turn of life.

What do these beliefs look like?

It’s when you think that there are only two ways - either tolerate or attack back. (And you better do the first because you would at least have the moral ground. The second makes you a bad person.)

It’s when you think you don’t have what it takes to be confident, to boldly ask for what you want, and speak your mind.

That something’s broken within you.

Beliefs like these are intrusive and hard to get rid of.

But is it possible?

Heck yeah.

I am the living proof of that...

On a quiet, pleasant summer night in 2018, my worst nightmares were coming true.

Everything I had worked for.

Everything that gave me my worth.

Everything from where I derived value and meaning.

Everything…was falling apart.

Why?

Because I was too exhausted to pick up the telephone at 11.30 pm – after a full day at the office and with a 5-month-old preemie baby at home.

It all started with a Facebook photo.

My brother went to visit his in-laws and shared a picture of the gathering on his Facebook.

Pretty mundane, right?

But somehow it triggered my Mom, who felt she didn’t see enough of him.

And she wrote a biting comment under that photo.

My brother and her wife took felt insulted and took it personally. They called my mom and pulled me into a conference.

Things got heated quickly with accusations flying from both end.

I was playing the mediator, but I was out of patience for these shenanigans and I dropped off.

They called me a few more times after that, but I declined the calls.

In the morning, I came to know that they had created a Facebook group, included all of the extended family – uncles, aunts, cousins – and then they went ballistic.

A huge family drama ensued.

Bruised egos and hurt feelings all around.

Tempers flared and there were more accusations, name-callings, and insults.

And when the dust settled – guess what the conclusion was?

That all of that could have been avoided – if only I was there playing the peacekeeper.

As I was supposed to do.

And if I can’t even do that – what’s the point of my existence?

I was cast out by my family like a used rag.

My brother and his wife had stopped talking to me. My mother blamed me for everything that was going wrong.

For someone whose worth and value came from being the glue that holds the family together – it felt like death.

I thought I have failed as a son. I thought I have failed as a brother.

And I was pretty sure I was going to fail as a husband and a father as well.

I was seething with rage and resentment.

How dare they do this to me? After all that I have done for them? How can they be so ungrateful?

I was trapped playing the victim.

A part of me wanted to burn all bridges and walk away.

But they are my family nonetheless – and I wanted to connect with them again.

I wanted to stop feeling like a loser and a failure.

But, I had no clue where to start and where to go from here.

Throughout my life, my MO was to asses others’ moods and try to please them.

I used to give more than I can afford to, even while tolerating disrespect and insults and never asking for anything in return.

After all, that was what a “good person” was supposed to do, right?

Yet, here I was, on the brink of the abyss.

I knew I needed to change.

But I didn’t know what that change looked like.

I was scouring Google for answers – praying, grasping at any straw that would pull me out of this swamp.

And my prayers were answered.

I found “Not Nice” by Dr. Aziz Gazipura and “No More Mr. Nice Guy” By Dr. Robert Glover – from a book recommendation thread on Reddit.

These books are, as Tyler Cowen calls them, my “quake books”.

They gave me the harsh wake-up call that I needed.

And finally, I realized that I was responsible for the condition I was in.

I was addicted to approval.

I didn’t have enough self-respect.

I was too clingy and needy.

I allowed them to treat me like that.

I realized that I need to learn how to be more assertive.

And I needed better boundaries.

And I needed to learn how to process my emotions better.

So I started devouring books and courses on these topics and started applying them in my life.

And slowly, things started to get better.

I started believing in my right to look out for myself first.

I stopped giving in to requests that didn’t serve my interests.

I began to win my own approval.

I thought that my newfound self-respect and boundaries would push my family even further.

But I was past caring at that point.

Then, something strange happened.

Instead of pushing them further, I started to receive those things I always craved.

Respect and appreciation.

Today, I am once again grown close to my family.

From not being on speaking terms with them to going on vacations together with them – I’ve come a long way.

My relationship with my wife feels more satisfying and fulfilling than ever.

At work, I always used to keep my head down, never asking for a raise or a promotion.

Today I’m in a leadership role, running squads of my own, and appreciated by my bosses and clients.

Socially I used to be a recluse with only a few friends.

Today, my life feels fulfilling with friends and connections all over the world.

I feel respected and appreciated in my own local community where I’m the treasurer of our residential complex of 184 apartments.

I’m at complete peace with myself and comfortable in my skin.

I’m no longer afraid to speak up and I can be my authentic self in any company.

I’ve built audacious dreams for myself and I’m working towards them every day.

My life feels rich and thriving.

The nightmare has ended.

So once again, is it possible to get rid of approval addiction?

Of course.

But it’s incredibly hard to do it alone.

Heck, it took me 4+ years to reach where I am today after I started looking for answers.

And I’m still a work in progress.

Do you want to spend 4 more years trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t?

Of course not.

But there’s a little caveat here…

I can work with only a limited number of people.

Once I hit that hard cap on my time and energy - I won’t be able to work with you even if I wanted to.

So I urge you to act fast.

But is that the only reason to do that?

After all, every day you keep living like this is a day you lose from living the highest version of yourself.

Every day fills you up with guilt, shame, and regret of not being able to be who you ought to be.

Every day keeps adding derision and disrespect about you in the mind of people important to you.

Every day contributes to anger and resentment in your mind about them.

It’s pushing you apart.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg…

• You are taken advantage of by family members or business partners
• You get steamrolled by everyone
• You suffer from anxiety and worry about not being able to stand up to your boss
• You don't get salary raises or promotions.
• Everything that you keep bottled in shows up as chronic injury or pain.
• Stress, anxiety, and worry lead to tons of health issues like heart problems, high BP, and diabetes.
• You suffer from extreme low self-esteem.
• You avoid social situations where you might feel uncomfortable and lose out on tons of opportunities in life.
• You are at high risk to suffer from depression since you develop a negative outlook on life.

You know that time is running out for you.

So what are you waiting for?

But talk is cheap.

How do you even know if I will be able to deliver all that I promised?

I can because I have developed a repeatable system that helps me deliver my promises to my clients.

Sounds incredible right?

I’m excited to tell you about the exact 7-step system I use to help my clients get rid of their approval addiction forever.

Before I tell you about the system, let me start by telling you how I came up with it.

(If you want to skip it and jump to my explanation of the system, scroll past this story. But I think you’ll like to hear it.)

You already know why I started my journey to kick my approval addiction back in 2018.

But let me tell you – the journey was not an easy one.

It was awkward as hell.

I felt like a new child learning to walk. And I stumbled a lot.

I had no one to talk to and no one to turn to for guidance, except for the books and courses.

They were helpful, but only up to an extent.

You see the thing about books and courses, they do give you the knowledge that you need.

You understand the problem intellectually and you understand what you need to do.

But with no one to address the exact queries, it doesn’t always feel like the right path to travel.

I’ll give you an example of my struggles when I got started.

So there was this intense clash between my earlier value systems and this new set of value systems that I was trying to cultivate.

I held the old me responsible for my pain.

I thought that I had to completely disown my earlier persona.

So I set out to change everything about myself.

Even the qualities I cherished about myself – kindness, sense of humor, humility.

And when you start to disown parts of yourself, things only get worse.

For a period of time, I started to act like an absolute jerk.

It was always followed by regret and then I had to process the guilt and anxiety.

My relationship with my wife deteriorated.

But she somehow, as the amazing woman she is, bore this phase with kindness, patience, and understanding.

I had tapped into this sea of simmering rage and resentment that I had piled up and shoved down into my subconscious.

This is very normal when you’re dealing with approval addiction.

Because you are used to repressing your anger and putting up a smiling face.

But just because you shoved it in the basement, doesn’t mean it went away.

It’s still lurking there in your subconscious.

Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing prepares you for that unsurmountable rage.

And now it was staring back at me and I had no clue how to process it.

I started running followed by a rigorous workout routine. That helped a lot.

So did creative pursuits like learning to play the violin (I had always wanted to learn how to play an instrument).

But it was all very unstructured.

Some things helped, and some didn’t.

Often I was tempted to go back to my old ways.

Only the immense feeling of pain and betrayal stopped me from doing that. (I didn’t know you could ever be grateful for something like pain. But I am.)

You have to find a way to not get lost in all that rage.

You have to stop blaming yourself.

You have to forgive yourself for all the transgressions you made and the ones that you allowed to happen.

You have to become kinder to yourself.

You have to start liking yourself and even loving yourself.

That’s when the magic starts to happen. That’s when you start to heal.

And that’s where the need for a system and a framework comes in.

It helps you become aware of yourself – about your strengths and weaknesses, your hopes and dreams, your goals, and your values.

Because without that clarity, you will be tempted to fall back to the path of least resistance.

Back to approval addiction.

But once you have them uncovered, they serve as a north star in your journey.

Then you need systems that slowly build up your reserves of confidence and self-esteem.

So that your days feel satisfactory and you can stay kind to yourself.

You need systems to uncover the faulty thoughts that have been holding you back. And you have to replace them with ones that serve you.

You have to develop skills for handling your emotions, building better boundaries, and holding your ground against pushbacks.

You have to build systems that will gradually build up your courage and allow you to face your greatest fears.

And you have to prepare yourself to face the challenges in the future so that you never regress.

So how do you do all of that?

This is where the 7-Step Approval Reboot program was born.

While working with clients, I was able to see the commonalities and develop a real method for each one to go through.

Some clients got results right away when we focused on their key thought barriers.

Others needed a lot of upfront work with their behaviors and thoughts before they started to see results.

Either way, the system worked better the more I developed it.

It’s a combination of a laser-focused coaching approach paired with cognitive behavioral theories.

And it can be used to deliver results at will, as long as a client is willing to show up and put in the work.

As a result of this system, lives were changed.

My clients stopped being helpless and powerless.

They became bold, confident, and authentic.

They started speaking up unapologetically, in their relationships, and at their work.

They have put their foot down and enforced their boundaries against their demanding and ungrateful bosses, their spouses, their family members, and their colleagues.

They have regained trust in their own capabilities and resourcefulness.

They have stopped allowing others to speak over them, dominate them, mock them, and make them feel small.

In turn, others have stopped overlooking them, started to respect them, and even started to find them attractive and desirable.

This is the system I use with all my clients.

The basic framework is the same, but – we do change the implementation depending on a few things:

1. How assertive you are, to begin with?
2. How big a role anxiety plays in your day-to-day life?
3. What kind of negative thought patterns do you have?

So here’s what the framework looks like:

The first week is the heavy lifting week.

As soon as a client is onboarded, we go into data collection and assessment mode.

We figure out the level of their assertiveness, anxiety levels, and the pattern of negative thoughts.

We refocus their thoughts on things they are good at.

Because your mind often plays dirty tricks. It makes you forget how amazing you really are and focuses on the negative side instead.

We assess six core areas of your life:

1. Relationships
2. Professional life
3. Meaning and purpose
4. Health
5. Relaxation
6. Day-to-day domestic routine

And finally, we figure out and agree upon the explicit and underlying goals, so that we can measure progress.

The second week is focused on clarifying your core values.

Your values are what drive you.

So we get clear on them and then plan activities that will help you stay aligned with them.

This is a crucial step to ensure that your days feel meaningful and satisfactory.

Most people regress here. They neglect this, seek other means of dopamine hits, and get derailed.

So you absolutely need to nail this step.

This in turn will give you the mental energy you need for what’s coming next.

Now we are done with the legwork and ready to dive deep.

In the 3rd week, we start by understanding the basics of the cognitive approach.

We understand what emotions really are and how our thoughts affect them.

Then we start to uncover your thought patterns and keep tabs on them.

This is the first step to becoming aware of them.

And everything starts with awareness.

This part is really the crux of the 7-Step Approval Reboot System.

By now you are aware of what’s really going on in your mind and you’ve started to notice some problems with your thoughts.

Maybe they are not 100% correct or maybe they tend to exaggerate things.

These faulty thought patterns are known as cognitive distortions.

And in this section, we work towards identifying those patterns and breaking them.

We examine the thought patterns and identify the core beliefs and fears.

We also get rid of the thought patterns that don’t help you and instead choose the ones that make more sense.

This is the section where life-changing breakthroughs happen.

At this point, you have worked towards aligning your behavior with your values.

You have uncovered your faulty thought patterns.

And you have started to replace them with meaningful ones.

Now it’s time to develop some skills and prepare for facing the real world.

There are 5 key skills that you need:

• Assertive communication – How to say what you need to say without becoming too aggressive or too passive.
• Handling stress response – How to stay grounded without being flooded with emotions during difficult conversations
• Self-compassion – How to stay kind and compassionate with yourself when you mess up
• Overcoming social barriers – How to handle the backlash from the people close to you. who will be freaking out because of your changes
• Setting boundaries

The key to getting rid of approval addiction is to teach yourself how to face your deepest fears.

You have already uncovered them in section 4.

Now we face them.

Does this mean immediately you start to scale tall buildings and go out sky diving?

I’m afraid yes (just kidding).

No, what you do is learn to understand your nature of fear.

And then you create a hierarchy of fear – ranging from ones that feels like a walk in the park to the ones about which even thinking is difficult for you.

And then together we work our way up that ladder.

At this point, you would have developed some key habits and skills.

And you should be already starting to see some amazing changes in your life.

More confidence, less anxiety, and more admiration from family and friends.

So now it’s time to look back and see what worked the best, and where we still need some tweaks.

We also plan for the future, so that you can keep making continuous progress even after we stop working together.

The idea here is to plan out a roadmap for the next 7 weeks and even beyond.

This is the roadmap that you will keep visiting whenever you feel stuck.

“There is no peace that lives within us constantly and never leaves us. There is only the peace that must be won, again and again, each new day of our lives.”

Ideally, the entire program will get completed in 8 weeks – with 8 coaching calls spread over the program duration.

But I understand that life sometimes comes in the way.

Sometimes you feel that you still need some more handholding before you feel confident enough to work solo.

That’s why this program comes with a guarantee.

Once you have gone through this program, you have everything that you need.

You have made life-changing upgrades to your thought process and developed key skills.

So from now on your life would be a piece of cake and you will cut through every challenge like a hot knife through butter, right?

Hah, if only…

If you thought that would be the outcome, then let me stop you right there.

You will never become perfectly flawless.

You will mess up, you will take a step backward and you will sometimes fall back to your old patterns.

But the key thing is – you are no longer helpless anymore.

You have the tools, strategies, and techniques to pull yourself up, soothe yourself and get back on track.

And over the years, this process will keep getting easier.

How does that sound?

Do you want this kind of result in your life?

Do you want to banish approval addiction forever from your life?

Do you want to stop feeling helpless and powerless?

Do you want to become bold, confident, and authentic?

Do you want others to stop looking over you and gain their respect?

Still, reading?

Then I applaud you for your tenacity.

But jokes apart - you now know what approval addiction is costing you.

And you know that you don’t have to live with it forever.

Change is possible.

But do you know what the real tragedy is?

Most people won’t make an effort.

They will think that it’s not that bad and stay where they are - while they are being cooked alive like that frog in the pan.

Meanwhile, others seem to be repelled by them even though they try so hard to please them.

Nobody seems to respect them. Everyone keeps treating them as doormats.

They keep worrying about what others think about them.

They worry that they are not good enough. They think they don’t matter.

Sometimes they burst into emotional breakdowns over insignificant things and embarrass themselves.

It makes them even more insecure about the relationships in their life.

But that’s not you - is it?

You reached here. You know you can’t live like this anymore. And you are ready to take that step.

If that’s you - you have my respect.

It takes courage and humility to reach here. Not everyone has it in them.

And since you are already on that doorstep, let me tell you what life on the other side looks like…

• You will no longer feel helpless and powerless.
• You will no longer feel at the mercy of others. You will start believing in your own gifts and capabilities, and resourcefulness.
• You will have mutually respectful relationships with your family members, spouses, peers, and bosses.
• You will no longer feel disconnected and isolated.
• And you will stop leading an unsatisfying and meaningless life full of emotional and physical pain.

The call will take 30 minutes.

At the end of our time together, you'll have a roadmap to get rid of your approval addiction forever.

You will learn what you need to do to build empowering relationships.

You will know how you can stand up for yourself without losing your self-respect or the relationship.

If at the end of the call, we both feel we are a fit to work together, we can talk about what that looks like.

If not, the roadmap is yours to keep for FREE. It's a win-win.

So book that call now.