Approval Addiction: Overcoming Your Need to Please Everyone

Joyce Meyer’s ‘Approval Addiction’ will help you outgrow the feeling of insecurity about what people think or say about you.

Book Author: Joyce Meyer

Book Reviewer: David Oletu

Publisher: FaithWords; First edition

Publication date: April 1, 2005

Length: 256 pages

ISBN: 0340954213

A sense of security is something everyone needs.

It enables us to enjoy healthy thinking and living,

and also helps us reach our potential and fulfil our God-given destiny.

Nevertheless, in our world today, there is an epidemic of insecurity,

which makes people feel bad about themselves:

and, as a result, become approval addicts—: ones who can compromise to please everyone and gain people’s approval.

Approval Addiction: Overcoming Your Need to Please Everyone

According to Meyer,

when someone is an approval addict, he or she will have an abnormal concern and an abundance of thoughts about what people think of them.

Joyce Meyer discovers that a lot of people don’t like themselves until she calls it to their attention.

She claims that she has been convinced for years that a large percentage of people’s problems come from how they feel about themselves.

And She thinks that insecurity is why people struggle for position and power:

they derive their sense of worth and value from what they do rather than from who they are.

That is why some people become approval addicts—always needing the approval of others to be happy and secure.

Also, as a result, many live in pretence to try to be perfect in the sight of men, not even in the sight of God.

Joyce Meyer, however, states that most of us, to some extent, need to be delivered from the fear of man.

We need to be completely delivered from caring about what people think of us.

She maintains that people who always need the approval of others desperately want everybody to say that the things they say and every action they take are perfect.

And it is not possible!

Joyce Meyer therefore firmly asserts that if we are trying to be perfect, we are going to be disappointed because we are not perfect beings.

Although she acknowledges that we may manifest perfection,

some people would not be satisfied simply because they are unhappy individuals who will never be content with anything.

Approval Addiction: Overcoming Your Need to Please Everyone

What then should we do?!

With solid reference to the scriptures and her personal life experience, Joyce Meyer’s book leaves us with the good news that none of us has to suffer from insecurity,

and assures us that there is a cure for approval addiction.

Her book teaches that God’s supernatural Favour is certainly better than attempting to earn acceptance through a people-pleasing attitude and a perfect performance.

The book also reminds us of how much God loves and accepts us despite our flaws.

Meyer believes that God would rather have a believer who has a good heart and a low performance than one who has a perfect performance but an impure heart.

We shouldn’t be like the Scribes and Pharisees—the pretenders—the so-called very religious people who kept all the rules but whose hearts were not right.

Jesus referred to them as the white-washed tombs full of dead bones.

Joyce Meyer also admonishes in her book ‘Approval-Addiction’ that knowing who we are in Christ sets us free from the need to impress others.

As long as we know who we are, we don’t have to be overly concerned about what others think of us.

Once we know who we are in Christ and accept ourselves, we no longer have anything to prove.

And when we have nothing to prove, we can relax and be at ease in every situation.

Here are 10 takeaways from Joyce Meyer’s ‘Approval Addiction:’

1. If we are addicted to people’s approval, we will always experience pain when the approval is withdrawn.

However, if we look to God for our approval, we will never experience the pain of withdrawal because we have a constant, steady flow of His love and acceptance.

2. Our sin is great, but God’s free will gift of righteousness is greater.

Our sin is swallowed up in His righteousness. Our righteousness is not found in what people think of us; it is found in Christ.

3. Words are powerful; take them seriously.

Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation.

4. Don’t settle for anything less than the best God has to offer you.
5. God has given us the power to make the right choices and manifest the right behaviours.

How we act is important!

6. We can receive by fear as well as by faith.

Fear is simply faith in what Satan says.

7. It is our fellowship with God that helps and strengthens us to overcome our problems.
8. Meditating on all of our faults and failures weakens us, but meditating on God’s grace and willingness to forgive strengthens us.
9. We must learn to trust God’s word more than our feelings about ourselves.

We are not living by faith if we believe how we feel more than we believe what God’s word says.

10. God can work with what the world would reject as useless.

He can deliberately choose what in the world is foolish to put the wise to shame,

and what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame. (See the book of Jeremiah).

Have you had enough tension, discomfort and insecurity in your life?

Are you tired of being tied up in knots?

Tired of being afraid of what people think of you or what they may be saying about you?

Do you want to be at ease?

I think Joyce Meyer’s ‘Approval Addiction’ will help you outgrow the feeling of insecurity about what people think or say about you to be at ease with yourself.

More About Joyce Meyer: Joyce Meyer Ministries, Enjoying Everyday Life, Hand of Hope

Read Also: Finish What You Start – Diademng (thediademng.org)

Approval Addiction: Overcoming Your Need to Please Everyone