The idea that behaving a certain way will elicit a certain response is a delusion that will keep you puppeteering through your life. It will distance you from the person you want to be and the life you want to live.
You cannot think your way out of pain. You cannot predict it, or avoid it, or pretend you don’t feel it. Doing so is living a fraction of the life you were meant to, and it will make you a fraction of the person you’re supposed to be.
The real question is what work are you willing to do even if nobody claps? What will be worthwhile if it goes unacknowledged?
How will you feel loved by a few people if you aren’t recognized by many? Finding the exceptional in the ordinary is the real extraordinary.
The first, and most important step, to being the person you were intended to be is to conceive of them. Once you’ve accomplished that, everything else falls in line.