And while wanting to be good might seem like a wonderful quality for a child to have, being desperate for others to validate me was not healthy. It set me up for a mindset that’s not good at all. The mindset I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter is this: people’s opinions define who we are. If we live with this mindset, we will be desperate to try and control people’s perception of us. We will spend our lives managing opinions to always be favorable toward us so we can feel good about ourselves.
