I have noticed this for the LONGEST amount of time and the best 2 examples I get are

1) women

2) people that watch/appreciate my work.

Slight background :-

I know that growing up I have had self esteem issues courtesy some parenting, some my first girlfriend and I guess the rest just being either weak, insecure or naive myself. I have been working on them for the past year and I have FOR SURE, made leaps and bounds worth of improvement.

I am OBSESSSED with improving myself in EVERY way shape or form possible, be it mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological etc etc.

I work really hard at most everything that I do, and I even know that I do good work for the most part, but I don't give myself credit for it almost ever. For me it's like OF COURSE it should be good, because you are good enough to be making the work this good and even better, which is what you should be attempting to do.

If I were to coach someone else (which I do) I make sure to make them see every bit of improvement and progress and make sure to give them credit and make them realize it. For me myself , I like to increase the difficulty of ANYTHING I do to the HARDEST and attempt it. If I get it successfully I'm like good we were supposed to. And if I fail, I donn't give myself the leeway nor the realization that I failed at the HARDEST difficulty.

Cominng back to the appreciation and more importantly the external cause/source of my happiness. This is what bothers me most.

If I approach a girl, and have a good interaction I feel 'accepted' and or 'good enough' , because obviously that's what's inferred from that interaction with her.

When I get that 'sucess' I feel happy, in my self, and the day goes much MUCH better in terms of energy(way better than any amount of caffeine or stims) and just a level of self accomplishment, self worth and happiness.

Similarly when people watch my content on Yoiutube and leave likes and/or appreciation for the work that I do.

To give an example, I was feeling super sluggish and low energy for a couple of days in a row (which is bad as a content creator/an artist) but I checked my Youtube comments and I got a lot of appreciation and interaction for my previous work and that INSTANTLY made me happier and also just gave me this CRAZY boost of energy that I rode for the entire day and produced 4 more videos on later on.

Why is my locus and source of happiness external and why can I not make it internal. If someone could help me figure this out and fix it I would be ETERNALLY grateful!