How to stop seeking approval from other people

Hello ladies and welcome to the podcast. S

o as you know, I have in the last few episodes, talked about how to process negative emotion. And I feel that I've really been doing that well recently. So I've been really sitting in that negative emotion and being okay with it, allowing myself to feel it. And I've noticed that I am doing so much better in my emotional management.

So even though I'm a weight loss coach, even though I'm a life coach and I'm an expert at this, I'm also human. And so I still have that primitive brain wanting me to escape and do the easy thing as well. So I really understand when that happens for you and it's completely normal.

Remember your brain is always going to want to get you to seek pleasure, avoid pain and stay how you are. It's been really nice to be able to just be there for myself. And, I feel like I've emerged from the other side. So look, I've had so many ideas from going through this experience that I wanted to share with you.

And today's podcast episode is specifically about what to do when your partner or family member doesn't agree with your weight loss attempt. And this idea came to me because I had a few consults recently, and this had been the case for the person who was on the consult. And I wanted to talk you through the coaching I offered on these consults because I think it will really greatly impact a lot of you who are going through the same issue.

The situation was the lady came on the consult and said, I really do want to work with you, but I know that my husband's going to be skeptical about it. He knows that I've already spent thousands of pounds or thousands of dollars doing other things, and he will not be happy about me spending the money and, going through the experience again.

So, this is how I coached her. And I wanted to share it with you so that you can use this coaching on yourself as well. What I talked about, what I started off with was reminding my client what it was like in her previous weight loss attempts. And what she said was that she is raring to go at the beginning.

She is really motivated for two to three weeks and she's able to stick to it to the T, she's able to do every single thing that the program is asking her for. And then what happens? She's starting to feel deprived, starting to get bored, starting to not want to do what she paid the program for.

So I asked her, what impact does that normally have on her husband during that time? And she said, that's when I start snapping at him, that's when I start asking him for his approval and say, do you think I've lost weight? Even if the scales may not be moving, oh, can you see any difference in me and basically being a lot more needy, needing his approval, wanting him to validate what she was doing.

And I said, how else were you showing up to your husband? And she said, I was snappier with him. I was a lot more hangry and wanting to eat, but then depriving myself of it because that's what I thought would help me lose the weight. And then I was shouting at him and arguing with him and I was creating arguments, even when it wasn't really a big deal.

So when she was able to identify that I said to her, well, no wonder your husband's not going to be really excited about the next weight loss attempt that you have, right? Because if that's how he has experienced it in the past, when you've been on a weight loss attempt, he knows that this has been your pattern previously.

And even if you know that it's going to be different this time, he may not be on board because he may expect it to be the same as it's always been. Right? So when you are looking to get his approval on this, I want you to think about why that is for you.

It's because you're not actually supporting you in your own decision. You're seeking his approval because you don't approve of yourself. I want you to think about when have you done something where he didn't approve of it and you still did it.

So I know for me, it's when I spent a lot of money on my coaching certifications. I know that Rick doesn't say no to me, or doesn't give me any grief, but there is a part of him that thinks that's a lot of money that you need to spend on this. Why do you need to do that? You're already a certified coach. Why do you need to keep getting more and more certifications?

And that's where I completely believe in my ability to serve my clients better. And I think of it as an investment into my business because when I'm investing in my mind, then I'm able to give all of you so much more value. So I think of it as it's okay that he doesn't agree with me. I'm going to do it anyway. And I'm so clear on that.

So I want you to think of a time for you, where you have disagreed with your partner or family member. And I want you to think about when has it been okay that you disagreed with them? When were you fully on board with it, even though they disagreed with you?

When I was coaching this client, I asked her to think of it from her husband's point of view. I asked her, why do you think your husband will not approve of it? And what she came up with was really interesting. She said, my husband's going to think that I'm going to feel deprived and I'm going to then give up. And then I'm going to feel really upset and beat myself up. And actually he loves me too much to see me go through that. And he doesn't want me to go through that heartache. So he is saying to me that I'm fine, the way I am. And all I need to do is just eat healthily and to exercise.

So when I coached her on this, she was able to realise that her husband was only trying to look out for her. He was coming from a place of love, but often when they say no to something that we want to do, we don't look at it from their point of view. We think they're trying to jeopardize our attempts and then we feel annoyed. And then we probably go and overeat for that, right?

Because we're like, oh, he doesn't even support me. He doesn't know how important it is for me. And he's controlling me and I always have to do what he wants me to do. And this isn't fair. And all of that negative emotion kind of gets too much. And that's when you're going to go and overeat and you're going to go and eat something and it may not be straight away. It may be later on in the day, maybe, the next day, but that unprocessed emotion, you're gonna find it too much and you're just going to want to push it away.

So of course he's not going to want to pay for it. Of course, he's not going to want to go through that experience. But when we are blaming our partner, what we're not doing is taking responsibility. I want you to go back to listen to the blame versus responsibility podcast.

It's much easier to say, you know what? I really want to do this. And for the partner to say, no, actually it's too expensive. Or what makes you think it's going to be different this time? And I don't think you should do it. It's easier to blame them. It's easier to think. I'm not losing weight because they said no.

Instead of thinking I'm not losing weight because I didn't have that self confidence in myself to believe in my own self and approve of my own self instead of seeking that approval from my partner. Now don't get me wrong. I am not telling you to go against your partners and things like that.

But what I'm doing is allowing you to think about, am I blaming my partner or am I taking responsibility for my own thoughts and feelings? Am I providing my own self with that sense of approval? Or am I seeking it from my partner? Am I looking at it from his point of view or her point of view? I want you to think about how you would talk about it differently if you approved of your own self.

You may not say, can I go on this course? Or I really want to do it, what do you think? You may see it slightly differently. You may say this is something that I really want to do. You may not approve of it. And that's okay. I completely understand where you're coming from, but I'm going to take full responsibility for this. I'm not going to blame you. I'm not going to ask for you to validate me and say that I'm doing well or anything. My coach has said to me that that is fully on me, nothing to do with you. So you may say it in a way that you've never, ever said it before, and that will be completely different for him, right?

Because you're going to be like taking responsibility probably instead of blaming him. And he may just be shocked at that. Right? So from experience, he's unlikely to be excited about this because he's seen how other weight loss attempts have gone for you. He's seen your trend. And so when he says no, he's only coming from a place of love, he's not trying to do it to spite you or to jeopardize your attempts or anything like that.

But what I want you to think about is when you're blaming him, you're not looking at you, you're not focusing on all the times that you are mean to yourself, about how you're undermining yourself, about how you're not providing yourself with what you actually need, because let's be honest if you don't believe in you, how can he believe?

This is the main reason why people don't follow through with the program or don't even sign up to a program because their deep down underlying belief is that this hasn't worked for me in the past. So I am actually not capable of doing it. So, if you go in with that belief, you're going to go in and create that result, which is what we actually work on in coaching.

We help identify what are these thoughts that are holding you back and how can we change them in a way that's going to help you create the result that you want. Right? So I want you to focus on changing your opinion of you. I want you to focus on you rather than focusing on him approving.

He may approve. He may not approve, but when you're approving of yourself and taking responsibility for that, and that may mean paying for it separately, it may mean allocating the time out for it. It may mean arranging for childcare during that time, it may mean talking to your manager and asking to rearrange your lunch break to the time of the group coaching.

It may mean rearranging your work schedule. It may mean asking a family member to look after the kids or to pick up the kids, or it may mean rearranging what you normally would do. But my question to you is if you really wanted this, would you be willing to do that and ask yourself honestly, the truth.

If you're not willing to do that, that's completely fine. But just tell yourself the truth. If this seems too hard for you, then that's okay. Just own that. You don't want to go through that discomfort right now, and you don't want to lose the weight right now because weight loss is a method of learning how to be okay with discomfort.

What I teach you is learning how to feel your own urges. Now, let me be honest, feeling an urge is not comfortable. It feels uncomfortable, but it only lasts like two minutes and then you learn how to process them. And the more you practice feeling an urge, the easier it gets. So yes, there will be a lot of discomfort on the journey, but when we normalise discomfort and get good at feeling it and not making it a problem, that's when we get better at it.

So if you have to go through some discomfort to attend the coaching, then that's not a bad thing. In fact, that's an excellent thing because it gets you started and gets you used to feeling the discomfort and not making it mean that something's gone wrong. In fact, looking at it as I'm doing something correctly and you know what? I felt that discomfort and I didn't die. I survived that. Maybe it's not such a bad thing after all. It can make you feel accomplished when you actually go through it. When you think, you know what, I actually rearranged my work schedule to make this a priority. I am committed. I am going to make this work.

So then when you've got that mind space and you are thinking, yes, I'm going to make this work, regardless of whether my partner agrees, regardless of moving around my work schedule, that's when you know, yes, I am going to get this result, regardless of what happens. I'm committed.

I know that there's going to be some discomfort along the way, but you know what? I've done so many hard things in my life before, I will make this happen. This is different this time because I'm dealing with the underlying reason why I am overweight, me believing things from my childhood and from my past that are no longer serving me.

Like I have to finish everything that's on my plate. I can't say no when I go to auntie's house because she'll feel offended. I have to eat out when I am going on date night with my husband. Everything revolves around food and the south Asian culture, so if I'm not taking part, that means I'm being anti-social.

When you are able to question some of these beliefs and see whether you still believe them, and you want to still believe them, that's when you're able to change the trajectory of your weight loss.

When you keep doing what you've always done, you're going to keep getting the results that you've had. So that's why this is the time to do something new. This is the time to deal with the underlying reasons why this is a problem and why you would like to work on it.

And this reminds me of one of my clients who's just come to the end of her one year coaching relationship with me. She's a post-menopausal woman, and she tried every diet under the sun. And she set a goal of 65 kilos and she started at I think, 74 kilos because she thought that that is the lowest she would ever be able to get to. I think it was lower than her wedding weight or something.

So she said, yes, I want to get to 65. We got to 65 and then she lowered it a little bit to 62. She got to 62. So she lowered it to sixty. She got to 60. And then I said, okay, do you want to maintain here? Or do you want to lose more? And she said, I want to lose more. I said, what would be the weight that you'd be happy for the rest of your life?

And she said, 55 kilos. So I said, okay, let's get 55. Then we carried on working through it. And today on the call, she was 54.9 kilos. And I just asked her, how did it feel? And she said Amruti, I can't even describe how proud I am of myself. I'm a post menopausal lady. I have lost all of this weight.

So she lost what was that, 19 kilos in a year, without any exercise, whilst going through a bereavement whilst having grandkids that she looks after whilst having so much more energy even though she was changing her food, whilst being able to learn new skills of feeling her emotions, of planning, her food of feeding  her urges, of doing thought downloads and managing her mind.

She was like, I came in for weight loss and I've gained way, way more than that. People look at me like that strong woman. People are shocked when I'm able to say no at a party and be completely fine and not feel deprived.

And I was like, yes, this is the power of coaching. Everyone thinks it's just the weight loss. Yes. You'll get the weight loss and you'll get a lot of it. But it's actually the life tools that you will be able to use for the rest of your life. Being able to put yourself first without feeling guilt. In fact thinking of it in a way that when I look after me, I'm able to serve everyone else around me so much better.

I am so proud of her. And I asked, would you be able to maintain this? And she said, I know that I will be able to maintain this for the rest of my life. And I asked her, what would you do if you'd gained a little bit of weight? She said, I would just go back to the six step process that you've taught me about.

She said, you've taught me all the things and now I am so clear on all of that, that I can adjust my protocol, according to the foods that I love, I can eat with my family. And if I do gain a little bit of weight, I know exactly what I need to focus on to get back down. And it doesn't even feel like a problem anymore.

And I was in tears by the end, because I was so proud of her achievement and it just reminded me of the amazing work that we do as coaches. It's not just about the weight loss, it's about changing the client's life, but also the lives of all the people around her, her children, her grandchildren, all of her friends and her family members who notice.

Then I think about the ripple effects of being coached. That's when I think all of you ladies who are thinking, is this for me? Should I actually do this now? Or maybe in a year's time, my answer would be the quicker you do it, the quicker you get your results.

And then the quicker you can start living that life that you've always dreamed of. So if that is you and you would like to finally, let go of all of the mental weight and the physical weight. This is your time. I am enrolling for my May group coaching program and there is a space with your name on it.

So if you would like to join the May group coaching program, I'm doing free consults and you can book consult By going to the website, www.amruticoaching.com/group.

I look forward to seeing you on the consult. Have a lovely day. Bye-bye.