When you were in your first few years of school, did your teacher ever give you a gold star?

It might have been a little sticker on your test, paper, or drawing. Maybe it was simply a gold star, or maybe it was a sticker that said “Good Job!” or a strawberry with the words “Berry Good!” (which, if you were lucky, was a scratch-and-sniff sticker that actually smelled like a strawberry).

A “gold star” didn’t have to be a sticker, though. Perhaps your teacher wrote “Excellent Job!” or some other compliment — or simply drew a smiley face. And as you moved on to higher grades, the smiley faces and “Berry Good” stickers were probably replaced with “100%” or “A+”.

In the broader, figurative sense, gold stars didn’t always come from teachers. They might have shown up as a parent’s approving look, a compliment from a stranger, or acceptance into your peer group. As you became an adult, a gold star might have taken the form of a boss giving you a positive year-end review or a promotion, a love-interest agreeing to go on a date with you, or someone clicking the “Like” button on your Facebook page.

All of these gold stars are wonderful! They’re all ways of people saying, “I see you. I appreciate you. You did good.” And what could be better than that? After all, we all want to be seen, known, and valued for what we do and who we are. That’s a natural, healthy, and universal desire.

But here’s my theory on gold stars…

Ideally, gold stars should render themselves unnecessary. I think that their true function is to fill you with enough self-worth and self-confidence so that you no longer require external gold stars — because you’ve heard the praise enough that you internalize it, believe it, know it. You know that you’re OK — that you’re a good, valuable, worthy person — regardless of whether or not anyone gives you a pat on the back, a promotion, or a “Berry Good” sticker.

Because no amount of external gold stars will ever be enough to fill you.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting a gold star or being happy when you get one. But if gold stars are your primary motivation, you’ve given up your power. You’ve made other people’s approbation the source of your happiness (or, conversely, their disapproval the source of your pain). You’ve put them in the driver’s seat of your emotional life.

Carried to an extreme, the desire for gold stars can become a crippling addiction. It can be like a trained animal pressing a lever to get a food pellet. It can be emotionally infantilizing.

If you ever find yourself desperately seeking approval, ask yourself whose approval you’re really seeking. (By which I mean: Which parent’s approval are you really seeking?) Maybe it was a parent who withheld their approval — who was overly stingy with gold stars. Or maybe it was a parent who gave them so regularly that you came to rely on them to boost your self-esteem.

This craving for gold stars affects many people well into adulthood. In fact, I’ve seen many very successful grown men (middle aged and older) reduced to emotional 6-year-olds as they say things like, “I just want to make my father proud” (even when, in some cases, their father has long since passed on).

Some people might find this sweet, cute, or endearing, but I find it sad. And the coach, friend, or just compassionate-human part of me just wants to hug these people and tell them, “It’s OK. You’re OK. You don’t need to make your father proud, to impress him or get a gold star from him — or me or anyone else. You’re enough.”

This doesn’t mean that the desire for approval — especially from a parent — isn’t understandable and natural. Everyone wants to make their parents proud. But at some point, hopefully, that ceases to be your primary motivation. At some point, you give yourself a gold star and know that that’s enough — that YOU’RE enough.

So, that’s what I would love for you to do right now: Give yourself a gold star. Here it is. It’s yours for the taking. You don’t need anyone to give it to you — not me, not your teacher, not your parents. Give it to yourself, and keep it forever.

And then when anyone gives you another gold star in the future, you can still enjoy it, feel good, and add it to your collection. (And say thank you.) But you won’t NEED it…because you’ve already got your own.

And no one can ever take that away from you.

We live in an either/or society:

• You’re either male or female.
• You’re either Republican or Democrat.
• You’re either a citizen or a foreigner.
• You’re either a Yankees fan or a Red Sox fan.

Yes, sometimes the either/or approach has its advantages. For instance, your computer couldn’t work without binary code — transmitting data through “bits” (either a zero or a one).

Either/or keeps things clear, unmuddled, and unambiguous — which is great for computers. But human life isn’t always so cut and dry. Most situations aren’t either/or, and boxing yourself into a binary mindset can rob you of life’s richness — and stop you from realizing your full potential.

(You might even be costing yourself millions of dollars! Read on, and I’ll explain.)

How does an either/or mindset show up (and limit you) in your life? For instance, do you ever try to fit yourself (or others) into one — and only one — of the following sides?

• You’re either left-brained or right-brained.
• You’re either spiritual or secular.
• You’re either head-focused or heart-focused.
• You’re either an artist or a business person.

It’s this last area that I see the either/or mindset pop up in the most. So many people seem to think in terms of Art vs. Commerce.

(“Versus” is usually a red flag of the either/or mindset.)

They think that creativity and commerce are mutually exclusive. That if you’re selling, you must be selling out. That if you can manage a paintbrush, you can’t manage a business. Or, conversely, that if you’re good with numbers and sales, then you couldn’t possibly be artistic.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Expressing both sides of this false dichotomy isn’t merely possible, it’s essential!

By shutting yourself off to latent aspects of your personality, you’re severely limiting your potential — in terms of personal fulfillment, creativity, and earnings.

As I mentioned earlier, seeing your life through an either/or lens could be costing you millions! You might have a million-dollar idea or million-dollar talent but not believe that you possess enough business savvy to share that idea with the world. Or perhaps you’re a master marketer who’s reluctant to unleash the creative ideas that would really move the world — all because you don’t define yourself as “a creative type.”

And that’s what it really comes down to: self-definition.

Do you define yourself in limiting, either/or terms, or do you embrace your multi-faceted richness? Do you think that being strong in one area implies weaknesses in other areas? Do you think in terms of competition (e.g., head vs. heart) or cooperation (e.g., all of your senses working together)?

Would you be willing to explore latent aspects of yourself? Would you be willing to consider that the “shadow” sides that you might have resisted could be the missing pieces of your life’s puzzle?

True, most people lean one way or another in most areas. Some tend to be more emotional and imaginative, while others are primarily intellectual and logical. And some people are naturally inclined to the arts more than to business. That’s not a problem. The problem is if you see such areas as mutually exclusive — in opposition to one another, rather than two parts working together to form a harmonious whole.

Once you begin to see beyond the either/or mindset, however, you’ll find that pairs you may have considered opposites (or opponents) can actually be complementary and mutually supportive. You’ll find that inner (or outer) conflicts don’t have to be conflicts at all. You’ll find that life isn’t always black and white, but full of many shades of gray — and red, green, blue, and the entire spectrum.

Embracing this full spectrum is what makes life so rich, fulfilling, and rewarding…in every sense.

…

Do you tend to pit art against commerce (or head vs. heart, emotion vs. logic, etc.)? Does your self-definition limit you or keep you from realizing your full potential? How can you bring more creativity into your business, more business smarts into your creative work, and more of your full self into all areas of your life?