Seek your own approval
Principle 23 from the Enchiridion
Listen to feedback without handing over your whole sense of worth. When pleasing other people becomes the goal, their reactions begin choosing our direction.
Original Passage
If you ever happen to turn your attention to externals, so as to wish to please anyone, be assured that you have ruined your scheme of life. Be contented, then, in everything with being a philosopher; and, if you wish to be thought so likewise by anyone, appear so to yourself, and it will suffice you.
Modern Interpretation
Epictetus warns that if pleasing other people becomes your main goal, your life loses direction. Once their opinions are your compass, your choices change with every reaction.
That does not mean ignoring feedback. You can listen and change course when the criticism is useful without building your whole identity around being liked. Private integrity asks whether your actions still match your principles when nobody is watching.
In Practice
Here is one everyday case. You share your work online, and your mood begins to rise and fall with the response. When the numbers are low, the work suddenly feels worthless.
Use the response as feedback when it is useful, but do not let a number decide the entire value of your work or of you.
Reflection Question
Which recent decision was shaped more by wanting to be liked than by the reasons you actually believe in?