When we are children we are completely relationally dependent.
What this means is that we are dependent
on the people in our lives, the adults
to meet our needs,
and to get us what we want.
We learn by virtue of being born into this type of a society
that in order for us to get people to meet our needs
and to fulfill our wants,
our best chance
is to create incentive for them to do so.
In other words, we need to please them.
When we displease someone,
when they don't like us and they don't love us
either they ignore us
or they act as adversaries to our well-being
instead of allies to our well-being.
And so, very early on we learn
that in order to get what we want and what we need
we have to be approved of, liked and loved.
Please pause and read before you watch this video:
Do You Make Love The Pre-Requisite For Getting What You Want?
This process of socialization teaches us
that the most important thing is to be perceived as good.
If we are perceived as good,
then somebody is going to act as an ally,
help us get what we want, provide a need...
For example, let's say that we are approved of
and that somebody says:
"Oh, you're such a good girl or a good boy",
now you get the cookie" right?
What we wanted, the cookie,
is essentially resting on the prerequisite
of being seen as good.
Or, for example,
you're such a good person, I like you so much
and so I'm going to support your goals or your aims.
So, even getting support to get what we want
seems to be dependent upon being liked and loved.
By the time we reach adulthood
this concept of being liked and getting what we want
is so incredibly linked
that we spend so much of our energy trying to be liked
SO THAT we can get what we want.
But let me tell you right now:
A key to success
is being able to separate out these two concepts,
getting what you want,
and being approved of liked or loved
from each other.
So that you can understand what I mean
I'm gonna give you an example:
Jake is an aerospace engineer.
He is so interested in aviation
that his entire existence revolves around it.
Many years ago he was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.
He struggles to understand emotional situations
and tends to say the wrong thing whenever someone's upset.
People don't find him particularly empathetic.
He's also very hypersensitive
and controlling about his environment
and this uptight behavior means that no one can relax around him.
Jake is not what many people would consider to be
a generally likable person.
Since Jake was 12 years old
he has had his heart set on one thing,
getting a job as a propulsion engineer at NASA.
Currently he works at another company,
on a big team
with other aerospace engineers and mechanical engineers.
As a result of this,
he has to interact with this team on a daily basis.
Which makes it a little bit of a problem for him
when a conflict arises on this team.
Recently A team conflict has arisen around a new design concept
and Jake acts no different than usual during this conflict.
Jake starts acting robotic and spaces off
instead of listens,
he starts becoming incredibly argumentative
and simply starts throwing facts in other people's faces
and proves himself to be unworkable.
So much so, that his entire team,
he's the team lead,
his entire team decides to escalate this conflict
and complain about Jake to Jake's boss.
Essentially what this team did
was organize to have a secret meeting behind Jake's back.
And then the next day when Jake gets called in to see his boss
and he finds out that this meeting took place,
a feeling of complete existential doom settles over him.
He has a total meltdown.
He storms out of the building,
he goes home,
he ends up curled up under his kitchen table.
For him, his life is over.
What is happening with Jake
is that this conflict at his work
made Jake feel like people are never going to like him,
he's never gonna be able to make himself be lovable,
be likable, be approved of.
And as a result,
nobody's ever gonna recommend him
to work as a propulsion engineer at NASA.
Jake has adopted this belief from his life experience.
Jake doesn't realize at the moment
that likability is not the prerequisite
for him being such a good aerospace engineer
that he will be recommended and valued enough
to achieve the position he has his sights set on.
His desire to be liked
must be separated from his desire
to be a propulsion engineer at NASA.
Separating them will make it so that
he can see all the ways for him to get what he wants,
rather than sinking into the powerlessness
of thinking that what he wants
is at the mercy of other people liking him.
Which is something that, quite frankly, he doesn't even excel at.
If Jake realized that he could get what he wanted
even if people didn't like him,
he would feel immediate deep relief.
Think about what you want in your life,
especially I want you to think about
the thing you want the most desperately.
And then, I want to ask the following questions;
Ask these to yourself:
Am I making being approved of, liked or loved,
the prerequisite forgetting that thing?
What if being approved of, liked or loved
is not the prerequisite for getting that thing?
If that were the case,
what would I do differently?
Being approved of, liked or loved,
is totally separate from getting what you want.
Unless, of course, what you really want
is to be approved of, liked or loved.
If that's the case, you can go directly for these things.
And trust me, if you go directly for these things
you're probably gonna be doing it a different way.
But all that being said,
so often, when we examine
why it is we wanna be liked and approved of and loved,
it is because we think that is necessary
so that we can get something else that we want.
Essentially, what's happening here
is that you are making being liked the prerequisite
for getting what you want.
When this is the case,
being approved of, being liked or being loved
and all of the things you're doing to try to achieve that
is a "so that".
To understand more about the problem with "so that" thinking
watch my video titled:
if you wanna be happy, don't do this.
Some people fear that dropping this idea
that being approved of and being liked and being loved
is a prerequisite for getting what you want,
will mean that somebody will just turn into a total a**hole.
I don't want you to be afraid about this.
That will only happen,
if, quite literally, the only reason that you're being nice to people
is so that you can get what you want.
And by the way, that's a whole separate concept,
whole separate topic, whole separate video.
You also don't need to worry
that separating this concept of loving and being loved
from the concept of getting what you want
will make you a bad person because it makes you less loving.
Love is also a completely different topic.
The practice of love is the practice
of taking another person as a part of yourself.
It has nothing to do with getting what you want.
There is an incredible freedom to be found
in questioning whether or not
being approved of, liked and loved
is actually prerequisite for getting what you want.
I want you to consider that it isn't.
And if you assumed that it isn't,
how might you go about getting what you want
instead of what you're currently doing?
As a result of doing this,
your options for getting what you want open up and multiply significantly.
Trying to make other people approve of like and love you
ceases to be your only venue for the actualization of what you want.
Also, being liked ceases to be the barrier
between you and getting what you want.
Instead, being liked and loved and approved of
is simply a bonus.
Have a good week.
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I wanna thank you personally
for the bravery that you have to step into awareness.
I'll see you in the next video.
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