The Courage to Be Unpopular

"The first time I lost a friend by telling the truth, I thought I'd done something wrong. We'd been close for years. Then one evening, I told her-gently but honestly-how her constant criticism made me hesitant to share my life. She went quiet. The conversation ended politely. But within a week, she'd stopped returning my calls. For months, I replayed the moment in my mind, editing my words, wondering if I should have softened them more, or not spoken at all. What I didn't realize then was that I wasn't losing the friendship. I was losing the performance that had been standing in for the friendship. And in its place, I was gaining something far rarer: authenticity."

"We live in an era where approval is a currency. Every click, like, and share becomes a subtle referendum on our value. Social media algorithms reward content that fits trends, not necessarily the truth. Workplaces sometimes prize conformity over innovation. Even personal relationships can develop unspoken contracts: I'll stay agreeable if you keep liking me. The result? Many of us become experts at "approval addiction"-a form of dependency where our sense of self-worth hinges on external validation. In psychology, this is often linked to conditional self-esteem: feeling "enough" only when others signal that we are. Over time, this erodes the ability to recognize, let alone express, what is genuinely ours."

"The Six Living Principles, a leadership program we developed, defines authenticity not as being consistently the same, but as being congruent, aligned with the truth of who you are now. It's not about proving you're real. It's about being so rooted in your truth that you don't need to perform it."

Approval functions as currency in modern life, with clicks, likes, and shares signaling value and algorithms favoring trends over truth. Dependence on external validation leads to approval addiction and conditional self-esteem, where self-worth relies on others' signals. That erosion reduces capacity to recognize and express genuine selfhood. Authenticity requires congruence with current truth rather than fixed sameness and emerges from alignment rather than performance. Losing conditional approval can free individuals from performative roles and restore self-trust. Heart-based authenticity emphasizes self-awareness, and being rooted in inner truth removes the need to perform for acceptance.

Read at Psychology Today