I Was Thinking The Other Day ( About WHY )

I love The Great British Baking Show, Chopped and The Great Pottery Throw Down, Alone…reality shows that often show the best of us. But there is one thing that I hear all of the time during these shows that really gets to me. It’s when the competitors say, ‘I want to make my parents proud” or “I want my parents to see that I haven’t wasted my time/their money”. It bothers me because those motivations are nothing but barriers to authenticity and a waste of emotional energy. I often find myself talking to the tv…”Why? Why aren’t you here for yourself?’ That should be important, more important quite frankly, than any other motivation.

When our driving force shifts from our own values to someone else’s approval, our authenticity is the first casualty. Self-Determination Theory shows that intrinsic motivation—acting because something feels inherently meaningful—nourishes our sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In contrast, extrinsic motivation anchored in external rewards or validation undermines these basic psychological needs, leaving us feeling controlled and inauthentic. As we chase approval, we begin to measure our choices by other people’s standards rather than our own truths. And our choices don’t just effect the long-term, but they debating the why of choices in the moment again wastes energy and time and creates a flood of self-questioning down the line.

This dynamic is also captured by the overjustification effect, where adding external incentives to an activity that was once intrinsically rewarding actually diminishes our enjoyment and ownership of it. When we speak or act to “please the audience,” we lose touch with the spontaneous convictions that make our voice genuine. What remain are echoes of what we think others want to hear—hollow sounds that erode trust in ourselves and from those around us. I have so many instances of this in my own career—it makes me sad for “past Rene”.

Ultimately, living for approval can trigger a cycle of dependence: the more we mold our actions to gain validation, the more we lose sight of who we truly are, and the more approval we need to feel “okay.” Breaking free requires consciously re-anchoring our motivation in self-endorsed values—choosing to speak or act because it aligns with our core beliefs, not because it earns applause. In doing so, we reclaim our autonomy, rediscover our authentic voice, and rebuild the inner trust that no external accolade can replace.

And while approval-seeking isn’t an “authenticity killer” reserved for women—social science shows it often lands more heavily on women’s shoulders because of how we’re raised and evaluated.

• Both Genders Seek Approval, but Patterns Differ. Self-Determination Theory finds that while everyone can slip into controlled (approval-driven) motivation, men in many studies skew toward power-oriented, intrinsic drives (competition, mastery), whereas women—socialized to value harmony and appearance—often report stronger extrinsic motives like wanting others’ validation.
• Self-Objectification Fuels Approval Seeking in Women. Objectification Theory demonstrates that when women view themselves through an external “observer’s” lens, they become hyper-alert to how they’re judged—boosting approval-seeking behaviors such as curating selfies or calibrating speech to please audiences. Higher self-objectification scores predict greater motivation for external validation—an authenticity dead-end.
• But It’s Not Inherent or Inevitable. Other research finds women can exhibit higher autonomous (intrinsic) motivation than men—especially when supported by self-affirming contexts—and that approval-seeking spikes only under certain pressures (e.g., performance feedback or appearance scrutiny).

Chasing applause is a human pitfall, not a woman-only syndrome. However, cultural forces—media objectification, the comparison construct and gendered expectations around politeness and beauty, not to mention workplace double binds, tend to push women more steeply down that path. Reclaiming authenticity means deliberately shifting from “What will they think?” to “What do I believe?”—regardless of gender.

I’m Rene Huey-Lipton and I believe that authenticity is a radical act of freedom.