To unlock happiness and confidence, you must seek and attain your own self approval. Whatever approval you are seeking from others, realize that who you are really seeking it from is yourself. So give yourself the approval that you are looking for so that you can be at peace with joy and have love for yourself. Then you can present yourself wholly and accurately and proudly as you are to others and be unaffected by their judgment. Whether their judgment is to approve or not approve, you will be happy because you have your own self approval.

Excessive vanity may be a sin, but a life without any vanity is a miserable life indeed. When no-one believes in you, you have to be there to believe in yourself.

Seek and attain your own self approval.

Look inward, and the outward will come.

Just because you are the one giving the approval, doesn’t mean you need to give it for free. Make yourself work for your own approval. Set a standard for yourself, don’t settle and cut corners for yourself. Be firm. The joy you will experience when you meet a firm standard is greater than when you meet a weak standard. At the same time, accepting where you are at the present is critical to having the strength to work on meeting that firm standard.

There is a difference between accepting and approving. Accepting is a lower standard than approving. Accept yourself as you are, love yourself as you are. Work hard to gain your own approval: the work you put in will make the approval that much more fulfilling.

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