The idol of approval is checking the stats to find out whether what you're doing matters. Not as a diagnostic tool but as a verdict. If the engagement is up, the calling is real. If it's down, you're wasting your time. For six months I came out at full speed across every platform: YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, posting daily, running ads, doing carousels and reels. Zero engagement. And I was getting exactly what I deserved, because I wasn't actually showing up as myself. I was chasing whatever strategy was trending, whatever hook format was popular, whatever the algorithm appeared to reward. I was building a clear authentic brand by being neither clear nor authentic. The breaking point came when nothing was working and I stopped. What I found in the quiet was the conviction that I needed to do this regardless of what the stats said, because the calling was between me and God, not me and the audience. God's approval matters more than what anyone else thinks. Planting and harvesting don't happen in the same season.
As an Enneagram 3, I'm wired to achieve, to be seen, to be recognized. Vanity and pride are not abstract struggles for me. They're specific patterns I've had to fight my whole life. So when I launched Clear Authentic Brands and came out at full speed across every platform, posting daily, running ads, doing carousels and reels and YouTube videos, getting zero engagement for six months, it didn't just feel like a strategy failure. It felt like a verdict on whether I was worth listening to.
This episode traces the specific trap the approval idol sets in content creation: you shape your message for the reaction rather than from conviction, you check the stats to find out whether what you're doing has value, and you burn yourself out trying to figure out what people want instead of showing up as who you are. When the engagement never came, I eventually stopped. I deleted the apps. I got off social media entirely. And in the quiet, I worked out what I actually believed about my calling: that I needed to do this regardless of the stats, that God's approval matters more than what the metrics say, and that I was in a season of planting, not reaping.
- The approval idol shows up not just as wanting people to like you, but as needing the metrics to tell you whether what you're doing is worth doing. If the stats validate you, you continue. If they don't, you question everything.
- Trend-chasing content produces engagement but not trust, authority, or relationship. It's a bump that goes away. The engagement it generates is not the same as connection.
- When the engagement feedback loop is absent and you have to keep showing up anyway, you find out what you actually believe about your calling.
- Getting off the platforms you can't stop checking is sometimes the only way to clear the noise and hear what you actually believe. Willpower doesn't work when you're addicted to the dopamine hit of checking.
- God's question: who are you doing this for? Are you doing it to be successful? Are you doing it for people to notice you? Or are you doing it because I called you to do it?
- You can show up faithfully even when no one is watching. That's what it means to do it for God rather than for the crowd. The obedience matters regardless of the harvest.
- Planting and harvesting don't happen in the same season. You plant consistently and keep your eyes on Jesus. God brings the rain and creates the harvest. That's not your job.
What is the idol of approval and how does it show up in content creation?
The idol of approval in content creation shows up as using engagement metrics to determine whether your calling has value. Not using them to diagnose reach, but treating them as the verdict on whether you should keep going.
For me, this ran alongside a second problem: I wasn't being authentic. I was posting for the reaction and shaping the content for what I thought would work rather than for what was actually true about me. Daily posting across five platforms. Carousels. Reels. YouTube videos. Six months of full-force output. Zero engagement. And I was getting the zero engagement I deserved, because I wasn't actually showing up as myself.
The two things were entangled. The approval-seeking drove the inauthenticity. If you're checking the stats to find out whether your calling is real, you'll contort your voice toward whatever might produce a reaction. You'll chase what's trending and slowly drift from the thing you actually have to say.
God saying, who are you doing this for? And why are you doing it? Are you doing it to be successful? Are you doing it to make money? Are you doing it for people to notice you and agree with you? Or are you doing it because I called you to do it? Are you doing it because you trust me more than you trust all of these other things?
Amy Dardis, Episode 24What do you do when you keep showing up and nothing seems to be working?
First, separate the question of whether it's working from the question of whether you're supposed to be doing it. The first is about metrics. The second is about calling and obedience. Conflating them is how the approval idol operates: when the metrics drop, you stop. But the metrics are not God's voice.
I got to a breaking point where nothing was working, I was exhausted and burnt out, and I started questioning everything. I stopped doing and started listening. And what emerged in the quiet wasn't a better strategy. It was a clearer conviction.
I came to a conclusion: I needed to go through with this regardless of what the stats said. Not because I was confident the numbers would come. But because I realized I didn't want to look back having not shown up the way God shaped me to show up. The calling was real independent of the audience.
Practically, I also deleted the apps I couldn't stop checking, left most of the platforms, and chose one primary channel: this podcast. I went back through ten years of journals and mapped the themes that had been consistent since my early 20s. Then I committed to the work regardless of outcome.
How do you show up authentically when you're afraid of being rejected?
Every time I turn on a mic, the anxiety is there. I'm terrified of giving it everything I have and having it not be enough. That fear hasn't disappeared. It just stopped running the show.
What changed was the clarity about what the alternative cost. Years of showing up professionally, keeping my faith in one box and my work in another, trying to be the version of myself I thought people wanted, and feeling disappointed in myself every time. There was nothing to show for it. And there was a lot of regret about what might have been if I'd started earlier being who I actually was.
The comparison that broke through: the option isn't 'show up and risk rejection' versus 'stay quiet and be fine.' The option is 'show up and risk rejection by people' versus 'hold back and live with the certainty of having not done what God asked.' The second option is a guaranteed worse outcome.
Resources mentioned
- Ep 23 — The Idol of Control — Previous episode: controlling God's plan on your timeline
- Ep 25 — The Idol of Advice — Next in the series: seeking guidance from experts over God
- Free Hiring Resources
Full transcript
In today's episode, we are continuing our series on idols in business, idols in entrepreneurship. And in this episode specifically, we are diving into the idol of approval: seeking approval from stats and from people and from metrics more than we're seeking approval from God. An idol is an object or a concept that we give a higher priority to than God. It's something we rely on for blessing, help, or guidance instead of God. It's anything that consumes a person's heart, mind, or devotion more than God. It's anything that we elevate and give power, prominence, influence in our life more than we're giving God that role in our life.
This idol specifically has been one that has been a recurring struggle in my life. I've always been a people pleaser. I have always been someone who has sought out success, has wanted to please, has wanted recognition and honor. I'm an Enneagram 3. So my very wiring, my very personality seeks out success. Vanity and pride have been two of the things I've wrestled with the most. Seeking validation, seeking my own ambition, seeking my own glory, seeking my own gratification. And sometimes steamrolling over other people in the process.
As an entrepreneur, we have this sense of wanting to succeed. We want what we're doing to be successful. We're looking at metrics, scorecards, posting content, seeing if it resonates. Looking at views, likes, engagement, scorecards on leads generated and whether the marketing we're putting out is actually generating interest. So there's a lot of metrics that are a part of business. For me, there have been two big struggles with this.
When I first started this business, I just came out of the gate full charge on every single platform: YouTube videos, posting on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and even Twitter. Trying to create content for those specific platforms, posting daily, using scheduling platforms. It was a race to the bottom: how fast can I generate content, how fast can I get this information out there? Doing videos, carousels, reels, written posts, everything, just trying to get some traction and engagement. We were running ads, writing landing pages, writing ad copy, doing creative, trying to generate leads, just push, push, push, push. And honestly, for a good six months there was basically zero engagement.
The two struggles were: one, I was just trying to do what I thought would work. I was not thinking carefully about being authentic, which is ironic because I was trying to build a clear authentic brand. And so this was a huge learning curve and come-to-Jesus moment of saying, wow, I don't even deserve to have any kind of engagement because I'm just not even being true to who I am.
In the marketing world, it can be easy to fall into this trap of trying to create content, trying to market, trying to do things for the reaction, for the engagement, because you get something back, because a video goes viral or there's tons of comments. And it feels good. Oh yes, something is working. Except that it's shallow, it's fake, it's not real, it's not sustainable. It's a big bump for a little bit and then it goes away. And so these trends can work for the short term, but they're not actually creating trust or authority or credibility or relationship. They're just capitalizing on an opportunity.
Here I am trying to take that strategy instead of taking the time to really think about who I am and what I want to bring to the table and how I want to show up in the marketplace and how God is calling me to show up. Like how he created me, the gifts he gave me, the voice, the passions, the style. Being who I am and being confident in that, even if I don't get the level of engagement that I want.
Cause I'm looking for that approval. When I put out YouTube videos or Instagram posts or podcasts, there's a part of me that's just like: okay, how many views do I have? How many downloads? How many followers? How many comments or likes? And wanting that reaction to validate what I'm doing. And that's normal, that's human. But the other side of that is God saying: who are you doing this for? And why are you doing it? Are you doing it to be successful? Are you doing it to make money? Are you doing it for people to notice you and agree with you? Or are you doing it because I called you to do it? Are you doing it because you trust me more than you trust all of these other things?
So I was in this season of doing all the things and putting everything out there and every day checking: do I have more followers? Do I have more likes? Did anyone look at my post or react to it or engage with it? And I was getting so frustrated because no, nothing, that wasn't happening. But here I was not being authentic. I was trying to tailor and temper my style, my voice, my message to just what I thought would work, to just whatever the popular strategy was, whether it was do this DM strategy or do this free guide download strategy or do this reel strategy with this compelling hook. All of these tactics that were not authentic to who I was.
And that became this wrestling point: am I willing to show up authentically even if it doesn't work? When I was trying to do these other strategies and tactics, I didn't feel good about myself. I didn't feel like it aligned with who I was, but I was like: well, this is just what I have to do. This is just what works. So there was this justification. Here I'm compromising what I believe, compromising my values and my conviction and trying to justify it, burning myself out in the process, not proud of what I'm putting out there. And thankfully, God didn't open any doors. He didn't bless that, because there was a bigger lesson for me to learn: learning to show up authentically, learning to show up how he created me. And breaking free from this dependence on the stats, on what the engagement told me about the value of what I was doing.
I get to this breaking point where nothing is working. I'm tired, I'm burnt out. I question everything. I question what I'm doing, whether God really called me to do this, whether anything I have to say is even right. And so I take this time to really just step back and stop doing and start reflecting and start listening and start praying. And to see: when all the dust settled, in the quiet, in the silence, when no one else is around, when no one else is looking, what was there? What was left? What was in my heart? What was this conviction there?
And I came to this conclusion that I needed to go through with it. Regardless of the stats, regardless of the engagement, regardless of any kind of reaction. I didn't want to live my life not seeing this through. I didn't want to live my life not showing up the way that I wanted to, talking about the things I wanted to, the way I felt like God had been shaping me and molding me my whole life. And I realized that I just spent so much of my life trying to do it the world's way, trying to be somebody that I thought other people wanted me to be, trying to talk about the things that I thought people wanted to hear about, and always feeling disappointed in myself.
So I get to this breaking point, and I'm like: okay, even if nobody else cares, even if nobody else ever understands, even if I put myself out there and do this podcast or build this brand, and no one else gets it or sees it or wants it or resonates with it, it doesn't matter because I know I'm supposed to do it. I know that God called me to this. I know that he's asking me to do this. I know if I stop this tension is going to build inside of me and it is going to wreck me from the inside out. And so I was like: okay, I have to stop worrying about what I think people want to hear or how I think I'm supposed to show up. I need to be confident in the path that's led me here.
And that's what I did. I spent a lot of time just reflecting on the journey that has gotten me to where I am today. The experiences, the lessons, the mistakes, the regret. And realizing: I don't want to look back and regret anything. I don't want to look back and wish I had shown up differently. If I look back, I want to know I put it all out there on the line. Even when no one was listening, no one was watching, no one was caring. Because I had this strong conviction, this belief, this calling. And it really came between just me and God. God, I believe that you have brought me here. I believe that you have given me this gifting, these ideas, these experiences. And I want to honor you with all of that.
And trusting the process: you're going to open doors in your own timing. And even if you don't, even if nothing ever happens, I want to know that I gave it everything I had. I didn't give up. I didn't stress out or burn out in the process. I stayed faithful. And it was just obedience, just surrender: God, your approval matters more than what anyone else thinks. And that's a daily battle. That's a daily thing to wake up and say: okay, let's do this again.
There were things I had to let go of. I am not on most platforms anymore. I'm not on hardly any platforms. It was too distracting, too much of a temptation, too consuming. I had to pick my platforms and pick my strategy in a way that was authentic to the gifting I had, authentic to me and how I want to show up and how it plays into my life. I had to decide what that was going to be, which for me was this podcast. And I went through journal entries for the last ten years and reread all the different themes. There were patterns over and over. I've been journaling about a lot of the same things since I was in my early 20s. Clearly there's something here. Clearly these are the things I need to be talking about. So I mapped it all out: what am I going to do, how am I going to show up, what are the things I'm going to talk about? And in making this commitment to myself and to God that no matter what happens, no matter if I get a hundred thousand downloads or zero, I'm going to see this through. I'm going to keep showing up. I'm not going to worry about what the stats say or what the feedback is. Because it's not about the outcome. It's about the input, it's about the obedience.
I'm in a season of planting. So I'm going to plant and I'm not going to give up because at the right time there will be a harvest, there will be a blessing if I don't give up and just keep my eyes focused on God. And God takes that, and he's the one who brings the rain, he's the one who can create a harvest, who can create a multiplication. And I'm believing for that, or whatever else happens. Whatever happens along the way, just choosing to trust that. So as always, you can learn more at clearauthenticbrands.com. That's all for this episode. See you next time.