Approval is another person’s positive response: they accept, appreciate or support what you are doing.
Of course that can feel good. The question isn’t whether you’re above enjoying it. The question is what happens when it doesn’t arrive.
How many encouraging answers would be enough?
You ask about the idea. They like it. You ask someone else. They like it too. Somehow you’re still not ready.
Perhaps you need specific advice. Or perhaps you want an answer that guarantees the attempt will be worthwhile and nobody will find it foolish.
That second answer is harder to obtain. Usually because no one can honestly give it.
In I AWAKE’s Creative Hero’s Journey, the realm Permission explores acting on creative choices without making universal agreement the entry requirement. Its book, I’m Done Asking, brings this into time, expression and decisions about sharing your work.
Feedback separates information you can use from reassurance you hope will remove uncertainty. You can listen carefully without putting your own decision on indefinite hold.
Psychologist Dan P. McAdams’s Self and Identity explores roles, goals and life stories. It offers another way to examine why being well regarded can become entangled with being able to recognise yourself.