You have done well by any outside measure. People assume you are ambitious, or that you need a lot of praise. Neither is quite it. Praise from most people does little for you. There is one opinion you are still waiting on, and you may never have said so aloud. I've stopped caring what most people think. There's one person I need to see who I am now, and that's the whole goal.
The Approval rule gets mistaken for ambition, for insecurity, and for three other rules that work to be thought well of for different reasons. The four can produce the same resume, and they differ in who the work is for.
01
One big result, four reasons
You have just finished the largest thing you have ever done.
Under Approval, you may have done it so that one person would hear of it.
Under Output, because without the next achievement you would not know who you are, whoever hears.
Under Chosen, because it might make you the one who gets picked, by anyone.
Under Peace, because not doing it would have disappointed people.
The result is the same in all four. What was done says little about why, and congratulations reach each of the four differently.
02
What is under each one
The fears are where they differ.
Approval says: if I stop trying to earn it from them, I'll never get it, and it'll be final. "I'm still working for someone who may not even be watching anymore." The fear is that without their verdict you don't know what you are worth.
Output: the fear is that without achievement you don't matter.
Chosen: the fear is that if you are not selected, you were not enough to select.
Peace: the fear is that someone's disappointment means you did something wrong.
03
The questions that separate them
Approval or Output: if you achieved it and they never found out, would it still count? No, barely at all, is Approval. Yes, and still not enough, is Output.
Approval or Chosen: is there one specific person whose verdict runs this, or is it anyone who might pick you? One person, someone you can name, is Approval. Anyone is Chosen.
Approval or Peace: is it anyone being upset with you, or one person's verdict? One person, someone you can name, is Approval. Anyone is Peace.
Others belong on the list. Right can look like this when the effort goes into never being corrected. Does it matter less if the person correcting you is someone you don't respect? Yes, much less is Approval. No, wrong is wrong whoever says it, is Right.
Two of these can be present at once, and all of them can be absent. Subtraction is built for that. It starts from several explanations and takes away the ones your own examples don't support.
04
Mistaken in the other direction
Other people may read it in their own way.
People you work with may explain it as ambition, as if the title were the point.
Friends may see a need for praise, and be puzzled when theirs changes nothing.
The person whose opinion it is may have no idea. They may think the matter closed, or may not think about it at all.
You may call it wanting to make them proud. That is a fair description, and it may leave out how long it has gone on.
05
What is not a rule at all
Wanting a mentor's respect is not the rule. What tells you more is disproportion and duration, such as whether it is still running years after the relationship ended.
Sometimes the person has died. Missing them, and wishing they could see what you have done, may be only that.
If your own reason was not one of the four, nothing on this page needs to be kept. Knowing that is useful.
How proving works as a strategy is on Performing and Proving.