The Trap: External Validation

What does is take to make you feel good about yourself? 

You see, the question of what you rely on to make you feel good about yourself tells you a lot about how you prioritize the importance of how others see you versus how you see yourself. We’re talking, of course, about your source of validation: whether you rely on validation from others or whether you rely on internal validation. 

But what if the people closest to you don't support your dream?

In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, our need for esteem and belonging come right on the heels of our needs for physical safety; we instinctively want to feel love and respect. This is our sense of validation – the feeling of approval  The problem however, is where those feelings come from, whether they come from internal or external sources.

Internal validation is your sense of confidence and self-esteem; you believe in your own value and worth. External validation, on the other hand, is approval and regard of others. By relying on external validation, you are inherently surrendering your identity and self-worth to others. If you want to improve your life and become a more confident, attractive individual , then you need to understand how to take back the control in your life.

One of the insidious things about external validation is just how good it feels. It's natural to want support and encouragement from the people around you. We live in a culture that’s obsessed with external validation. We try to cultivate our image in order to impress as many people as possible. We very carefully curate our lives in order to seem as impressive as possible, wanting to put not just our best face forward but the one that makes us seem inhumanely awesome. Even people who seem to be nothing but balls of misery are grasping for external validation, playing for sympathy and confirmation of their special snowflake status as the oppressed victim of a cold and uncaring system that grinds the innocent in it’s cogs. In doing so, we are defining ourselves by our popularity and the way we’re seen by other people.

In an ideal world, we would constantly surround ourselves with positivity. We can't do that, but we can work on ourselves so that we stay committed and positive.

We’re outsourcing responsibility for our emotional well-being, even our own identity, to other people because we want them to think well of us. We end up giving up who we are in order to conform to others ideas of how we should be. Internal validation means that ultimately, the source of esteem and satisfaction comes from within; it means that you believe in your own intrinsic value regardless of how others see you.

Focusing on our flaws is actually an incredibly common mistake; it’s a matter of thinking that you have to be perfect or the best in order to be worth something in the first place. Being self-validating has nothing to do with perfection; in fact, being self-validating is often the motivation to strive and improve.

You see, the key to self-esteem and internal validation is about setting your own standards, not the standards that others set for you. You pick your a goal – say, getting better with men – and work towards it. But the thing to keep in mind is that the path to any goal isn’t about just about the end; there are milestones along the way, other smaller goals that mark the way there. Achieving these milestones is how you measure your progress; it becomes the way that you recognize that you’re growing and improving.

Keep in mind: those goals don’t mean that you need to achieve perfection; in fact, focusing on being perfect is often going to be a hinderance. If you love modeling, you don’t have to be the best model, you just have to get better. Make the goal to put together, say, your version of the best you (not Kate Moss or anyone else) The focus is as much on your improvement as it is on your end goal. Perfection is found in the pursuit, not in the accomplishment; in fact, the more you improve at something, the more you’ll find that you have further to go than you ever realized… and that’s a good thing.

Here’s the thing about setting goals and standards: you have to be sure that they’re what you want. There may very well be overlap with others’ standards – just because somebody else holds a certain standard doesn’t mean that it’s inherently a bad one – but you want to be sure that they’re ones that have meaning for you. Just because something is “the way things are” doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re universal or even correct. They should be something that you think will actually improve your life even if nobody else notices or cares. 

Part of why we fall prey to external validation is because we find it so hard to believe in ourselves; we need other people to tell us that we’re actually worthwhile. It’s easier to be negative after all; when you’re cynical, you tell yourself you're being a realist, seeing the world as it really is. In reality however, this is just as much of a lie as the ones you think you’re seeing through. The difference is that you’re letting confirmation bias cloud your judgement and provide “proof” to what you already believe in.  You have to be willing to admit that perhaps you are wrong about the way you see yourself – that you’re not as worthless, ugly or unlovable as you keep telling yourself you are. Internal validation is just as much about accepting that your good qualities as it is about confidence in your ability to achieve.

Find The Balance

It’s important to remember that external validation is not a bad thing by definition. Caring about what others think is a part of social intelligence and part of how we operate in society after all. The key is to not let your self-worth be dependent on their judgement. There will be people who’s validation you should seek – people who you care about and who care about you, people whose opinions you value. Someone who is solely internally validated isn’t an inherently better person, they’re a narcissist.

You're a powerful being, just by yourself. Believe in that, don't give up, and you'll go along way.

But true, if they aren't your biggest fans ... They aren't the one.