Why do I need everyone to like me?

The need for everyone to like you is an exhausting and ultimately impossible goal that often stems from deep-seated beliefs about your worth and safety in Interpersonal relationship. This pattern typically develops in childhood when love, attention, or safety felt conditional on being 'good' or pleasing others. If you learned that approval equaled love, or that disapproval meant rejection or punishment, your nervous system might have developed the belief that being liked by everyone is necessary for survival and wellbeing. Fear of rejection or abandonment often drives people pleaser behaviors. If you've experienced significant rejection, criticism, or abandonment in the past, your brain might have concluded that the way to prevent future pain is to ensure that everyone approves of you. This creates a hypervigilance around others' reactions and a tendency to modify your behavior, opinions, or even personality to avoid any possibility of disapproval. Low self-respect can also fuel the need for external validation. If you don't have a solid sense of your own value, you might rely on others' opinions to feel good about yourself. This creates a fragile sense of self that depends entirely on external feedback, making you vulnerable to emotional ups and downs based on how others treat you. Sometimes the need for universal approval stems from confusing kindness with people-pleasing. You might believe that being a good person means never disappointing anyone or always putting others' needs first. While kindness and consideration are valuable traits, healthy Interpersonal relationship require Personal boundaries, authenticity, and the ability to sometimes disappoint others in service of your own wellbeing or values. The pursuit of universal approval is not only impossible but can actually harm your Interpersonal relationship and personal growth. When you constantly adapt yourself to please others, people don't get to know the real you, creating superficial connections that leave you feeling unseen and unfulfilled. Additionally, people often respect authenticity more than putting others first, and trying too hard to be liked can actually push people away. Recovery from this pattern involves developing internal validation, learning to tolerate others' disapproval without it meaning something terrible about you, and gradually practicing authenticity in small, safe ways. Remember that being genuinely liked by some people who know the real you is far more valuable than being superficially approved of by everyone.