In short
Podcast Summary: The Daily Motivation - Episode: Stop Killing Yourself For Other People's Approval
Podcast Overview
- Title: The Daily Motivation
- Host: Lewis Howes
- Theme: The influence of the stories we tell ourselves on our identity and personal growth.
- Goal: To provide motivation through insights from experts and proven principles for self-improvement.
Episode Details
- Title: Stop Killing Yourself For Other People's Approval
- Description: Lewis Howes discusses the dangers of seeking approval from others, emphasizing the importance of self-respect and setting boundaries.
Key Concepts
- People-Pleasing Behavior:
- Lewis shares his personal experience as a lifelong people-pleaser.
- Describes the feeling of overextending oneself to gain acceptance and love.
- Psychological and Emotional Impact:
- Repeatedly saying "yes" can lead to psychological, emotional, and physical self-fracturing.
- The necessity to reclaim personal power and align with one’s true self.
- Self-Respect and Boundaries:
- Self-respect must precede the respect one seeks from others.
- Importance of learning how to communicate boundaries kindly and assertively.
Key Takeaways
- Awareness of Self-Sacrifice:
- Recognizing the toll that excessive people-pleasing takes on one’s identity.
- Understanding that the approval-seeking behavior is often a learned response to past wounds.
- Courage to Say No:
- Importance of practicing the ability to say "no" without guilt.
- Acknowledgment that some may react negatively to boundary-setting, but it is essential for personal growth.
- Transformational Shift:
- By stepping into one’s power and saying "no," individuals can experience significant energy and confidence shifts.
- Personal growth requires risk and the willingness to face discomfort.
Actionable Steps
- Start Saying No:
- Encourage listeners to practice saying no when they genuinely cannot commit, while still being polite and clear.
- Reinforce the idea that it's possible to maintain relationships while establishing boundaries.
- Self-Reflection:
- Reassess personal motivations for saying "yes" and identify opportunities for setting boundaries.
- Embrace the discomfort that comes with change as a necessary part of growth.
Conclusion Lewis Howes emphasizes that living authentically means prioritizing self-respect and learning to say "no" when needed. The journey to reclaiming personal power begins with recognizing harmful patterns of approval-seeking and making a conscious effort to set healthy boundaries.
Additional Resources
- Sign up for the Greatness newsletter for more content and inspiration: [Greatness Newsletter](http://www.greatness.com/newsletter)
- Lewis Howes’ book: [Make Money Easy](https://lewishowes.com/review)
- Full episode link for more insights: [The Daily Motivation Episode](https://greatness.lnk.to/1855)
Call to Action If you enjoyed this episode, consider following the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and leave a review to support the show!
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.
0:11The more you disrespect yourself by saying yes to others, by doing things you don't truly want to do authentically, you're living a lie. You're living out of integrity and out of alignment with yourself and with your highest version of you. And you're doing something you really don't want to do. And that is out of alignment. And whenever you're out of alignment with yourself, you're fracturing yourself psychologically, emotionally, physically. Something is getting fractured because it's not in alignment anymore. So we have to reclaim this energy. We have to reclaim our power back. And this doesn't make you bad and wrong if you've been doing this for a long time.
0:51It just means this is the awareness that you needed right now. This is the reminder to take your power back, to step into that self-respect so that you can create boundaries with others and create respect within them. Now, they may not like you. They may not enjoy this. They like the version of you that they can always count on that's going to discount yourself to help them with something. They like that version of you. But no more. You're killing that version of yourself that has been weakened by needing people to like you, to love you, to what you think is respect you, but really they're not respecting you.
1:32They're taking advantage of you and you're allowing it. This doesn't make them wrong. They're not bad people. They've made a request and you've always said yes. This is just time for you to start doing something differently. And again, something you would normally say yes to today. I want you to say, I appreciate you for thinking of me, but I can't take that on right now. You can say it kind. You can say it with clarity. You don't have to be aggressive and mean and say, you always take advantage of me and screw you. You don't have to do that. You can just start shifting things. And the more you shift, the more the relationship will shift within you and the relationships will shift around you.
2:09And I want you to take this on. I want you to start taking action right now because you're going to start to see monumental shifts in your life. You're going to start to see incredible energy show up inside of you that you've never had before. You're going to have incredible power that you've never possessed before because you've never had the courage to use your words courageously to create a healthy boundary. And this comes from psychological wounds, emotional wounds, never feeling like you were enough, whatever it might be. I had this for decades, my friend. I know how this feels and I feel for you if you're feeling this right now.
2:51If you felt like you've been walked on, if you felt like you don't have the respect you want, if you felt like you've been giving and giving and giving and you feel like you're getting taken advantage of, that's how I felt most of my life. And I did it out of survival for many years to try to survive psychologically. And I just kept that habit up for a long time. And it doesn't make me bad and wrong or you bad and wrong if you've been doing it too. I want a better life for you. And I'm going to tell you right now, when you start making these decisions to say no, you're going to ruffle some feathers.
3:26So be fair warned. But that's what's required in order for you to gain self-respect back. And this is about you getting self-respect first before others give you the respect that you're looking for as well. And there's ways to go about this. You can still be a loving, kind, compassionate human being and communicate in a different way. but you might have to be willing to risk this, you know, fear in your heart and your stomach and your throat thinking, ah, what are they going to think about me? Well, some people aren't going to like it. Some people are going to say, good for you. Good for you for stepping up and taking back your time.
4:02And other people are going to be frustrated and they're going to try to use it against you and say, you're not being a good friend. And you're not, you've changed. You're not the person I could count on once before. Don't buy into their manipulation. Don't buy into their guilt tripping, that is not a high quality that you want to have in a relationship with someone. You want to say, hey, listen, I've been doing this for a long time. I still want to show up for you, but I need to take back my time and my energy at times. And I just can't commit to this right now. And again, for a season of life, I needed to say yes to everyone.
4:36When you're struggling, when you've got no career, when you've got no money, when you've got no contacts, go no network. Like that's how I built my business by saying yes to everyone for a couple years. But then I kept doing it and I overextended myself for too long after that. So know what season you're in. And again, I go back to that quote that, you know, really successful people say no more than they say yes. So remember that and remember this strategy, own your no.
5:14I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life, and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following. And thank you for listening to this episode of The Daily Motivation Show.
5:57Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation. And I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on the School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you wanna get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.
6:47Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.
From the publisher
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Check out the full episode: https://greatness.lnk.to/1855
"I had this for decades, my friend. I know how this feels... if you felt like you've been giving and giving and giving, and you feel like you're getting taken advantage of. That's how I felt most of my life." - Lewis Howes
Lewis gets raw about something most successful people won't admit: he spent decades as a people-pleaser. Not just a few years, but most of his life saying YES when he wanted to say NO, overextending himself to be liked, to be loved, to feel like he mattered. He built his entire business that way at first, saying yes to everyone for years because he had nothing—no career, no money, no network. But then the pattern continued long after it stopped serving him. He kept fracturing himself psychologically, emotionally, physically by living out of alignment with who he really was. The person everyone could count on wasn't the real Lewis—it was the version weakened by the desperate need for approval.
What changed everything was understanding that self-respect has to come first, before anyone else can truly respect you. Lewis walks through exactly how to start taking your power back, even when it terrifies you. He's honest about what happens when you finally start saying NO—some people will manipulate you, guilt trip you, tell you that you've changed and you're not the friend they could count on. And he'll tell you not to buy into it. Because when you're constantly discounting yourself for others, you're living a lie. You're killing the strongest version of yourself to keep feeding the weakest. This isn't about becoming cold or selfish. It's about learning to communicate boundaries with kindness while refusing to sacrifice your energy and integrity. Lewis knows the fear in your stomach when you think about saying no to someone. He's lived it. But he also knows the monumental shift that happens when you finally own your NO and step into the power you've been giving away.
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