#179 The Roots of Approval: Why You Keep Proving Yourself

High performers don’t crave praise — they crave safety. In this episode, Julie Holly unpacks why performance became your path to belonging and how to finally stop earning love that was always meant to be received.

The Roots of Approval: Why You Keep Proving Yourself

You’ve achieved so much — but deep down, something still drives you to keep proving.
No matter how much success you build, that quiet hum remains: Do enough. Be enough. Don’t let anyone down.

In this intimate reflection, Julie Holly reveals why performance became your path to belonging. Through the lens of attachment theory, polyvagal insight, and real-life experience, you’ll discover how your nervous system learned to equate doing well with being safe — and how to rewrite that pattern from the inside out.

You’ll learn:

• Why approval isn’t about ego — it’s about safety and connection.
• How your nervous system links performance to survival.
• The difference between unconditional and conditional attachment — and how it shaped your adult identity.
• How approval takes many forms: applause, silence, avoidance, or even belonging in unsafe spaces.
• Why high performance can become a survival response instead of an authentic expression.
• How recalibration at the identity level begins freeing your body and mind from old attachment loops.

This episode offers both compassionate understanding and practical application — blending science, story, and soul to help you stop striving for what you already carry.

💡 Individual Micro Recalibration

“You can’t transform what you’re still trying to outperform.”

Reflect:

“Where am I still trying to earn love, belonging, or approval through performance?”

You don’t need to outperform your past to heal it. You just need to understand it.

🧭 Team Recalibration

Bring this reflection into your leadership or team setting:

“What do you feel you have to prove here to belong?”

Normalize honesty without correction.
 When safety no longer has to be earned through performance,
 excellence becomes expression, and collaboration becomes natural.

If this episode gave you language you’ve been missing, please rate and review the show so more high-capacity humans can find it.

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This isn’t therapy. This isn’t coaching. This is identity recalibration — and it changes everything.