Photo by Thomas Somme on Unsplash
To what depths will people stoop in order to be in the spotlight? Is money the primary motivator or do people crave attention even if it’s negative? I often wonder where the producers of reality shows find their participants and why people volunteer to expose their lives. Attention, fame, power, and money continue to be the primary motivators of human behavior. With YouTube, Facebook, etc. and other media outlets, it seems very easy for people to bring attention to themselves. People can become addicted to this form of attention and seek it at any cost. Many individuals that I work with in my practice are focused on external forces for their self-esteem and have no clue how to generate self-esteem internally. Maybe they didn’t receive much attention in their past or maybe they never learned ways to feel good about themselves from the inside. One way to combat this approval-seeking behavior is to learn to self-praise instead of relying on others for acceptance. Internal self-esteem also comes from being assertive, having good boundaries, self-forgiveness, and volunteer work. If you can generate internal self-confidence there will be less of a need for attention and approval from others. We need to reinforce people for doing good for others and stop reinforcing bad behaviors by giving these individuals more media exposure. Lets make an effort to turn off the negative media shows, stop seeking external approval and instead generate “inside out” self-esteem.