That question hurts different people for different reasons. Maybe he is emotionally cold, and words like “I love you” or “I’m proud of you” don’t touch his lips often. Maybe he had different ideas for where your life should go. Maybe he would say it if he could, but he died before he got the chance.

What matters is that the question still hurts. There’s approval or acceptance that you really want or need, and if it hasn’t come yet then there’s a chance it’s not going to. Those aren’t words we can make someone else say, and even if we could they wouldn’t mean the same thing.

Maybe it makes sense for you to have a conversation with him. It’s within your right to tell him how you feel, and it’s reasonable that there’s a painful void where his support should have been. You can ask him if he withheld it for a reason or if it’s just something he’s not comfortable saying. Maybe he can show it in other ways, you might even have a breakthrough together. But I don’t think most of us can count on that. I think we need to find a way to tend to our old wounds. For God’s sake, I broke down crying at the end of Detective Pikachu because there’s an 5 second father/son scene. That doesn’t happen when you’ve healed all your daddy issues.

My therapist has told me that the best step here is in learning to accept ourselves where we are. We can’t depend on acceptance or validation from someone else, so you better learn to give it to yourself. That’s easier said than done, though, as you might have noticed.

I have a long way to go on this, but I’ve learned a few small things that I want to share in case it helps someone else.

Keep promises to yourself

Pride and acceptance are built on respect. When you don’t value or respect something, of course you don’t feel proud of it. This is important because most of us break promises to ourselves constantly. We decide to lose weight, then binge eat the next day. We decide we need to get a new job, but procrastinate looking for one. When someone breaks promises to you constantly, you lose respect for them. The same applies with promises to yourself. 

Building your self-respect back up is the answer. What we need to do is find promises to ourselves we can keep, make routines to keep those every day, and stick with it until we know we are someone we can count on. The good news is we can start small.

The small things are the big things

To build this self respect back up, we have to start really small. Stuff like making your bed, brushing our teeth, going for a walk every day. However small it needs to be for you to accomplish it every day. And once that’s consistent, step it up to body weight exercise, cleaner diet, whatever small steps take you closer to your goals. 

The goal itself is less important, but keeping the promise every day paints a self image you haven’t seen in a long time. Someone you can count on. Someone who gets things done. Over time these “small routines” add up. Consistency is incredibly powerful. A 500 calorie daily deficit will burn off 52 pounds in a year, no exercise required. Writing one page a day will make a 365 page book. Any goal can be broken into small daily chunks, and the respect and pride you’ll feel after taking down a big goal is tremendous – especially if it is one you’ve dreamt about for a long time.

Acceptance gets easier as results accumulate

As this discipline and continued effort accumulates into visible results, the acceptance and pride that we’ve needed for so long starts to feel natural. It’s hard to accept ourselves when our life isn’t what we want it to be. It’s insecure to want other people to accept us because we can’t do it for ourselves. Most of all, we have much less control over our feelings than we do our actions. We can’t force ourselves to feel anything, not in a durable and lasting way at least.

What we can do is make small habits that get us closer to our goals and stick with them every day. That’s what produces results, and results are what change how we feel about ourselves. You can have self-respect, dignity, acceptance, and pride. You can perform at a high level and take the path of discipline and character because you know that’s the life you want. Life doesn’t have to be a haunted house of emotions you’re trying to avoid and uncomfortable thoughts you don’t know how to deal with. You can make the choices that create the results that build self respect. Your acceptance, your validation, and your self worth is in your hands – not someone else’s.

This post is for anyone who deeply wants the pride and acceptance and love of someone else. For anyone who feels broken and empty and inadequate because no one has told them they are good enough. For anyone who wants more than anything to feel accepted but they don’t know how.

Now you know. It takes hard work, and it doesn’t come quickly, but you can do it. You can create this for yourself, and honestly you’re the only person you can count on to get you there. I promise you it’s worth it, and I promise the old pain of what you weren’t given starts to fade once you know how to give it to yourself. 

Further Reading: If this post resonated with you, I think you’d get a lot out of The Second Mountain by David Brooks. It is a terrific deep dive into where a fulfilled life comes from, what patterns create the painful emotions we feel, and what pitfalls to avoid as we heal. It’s helped me a lot to see the map of the road ahead instead of learning everything the hard way. I hope it can help you too.