Written by: Katherine Stancoff
Illustrated by: Hiếu Le
When it comes to validation, it’s common for us to obtain it through activities or other people rather than from ourselves. It may seem harmless to base your success off of things that other people control, but it is an unreliable source, and it also ignores your own personal triumphs that you’ve had to overcome.
Receiving external validation isn’t necessarily a bad thing — it just isn’t the best thing to put all of your self-esteem on. Examples of external validation include only being pleased with yourself when you get a good grade instead of knowing that you put a lot of effort into it; striving for comments from a coach instead of pursuing progress for yourself; eating differently solely to get comments on how you look rather than to give your body more a diverse range of fuel.
The reason this can be harmful is not only because others have differing perspectives and opinions, but that they can’t feel the effort that you yourself put in. For example, just because a student gets an A on a math test doesn’t mean that they worked hard for it — maybe they are just naturally in tune with numbers and formulas. Other people can’t measure your effort, and you can’t measure theirs, so you are the only person reliable that can congratulate yourself for it.
If you want help with seeking out external validation, you might need to work on your self-esteem. Seeking praise/results from others can be a tell-tale sign that you don’t think you deserve validation from yourself. You may think you’re too poor of a person to praise yourself, so seeking it out from others seems to have more potential.
Some helpful ways to improve your self-esteem can be alternate thoughts. This is a therapeutic skill that entails replacing a negative thought with a positive one. An example is the thought of “I’m such a failure” intruding on you, and replacing it with “I have succeeded at many things that others can and cannot see.” Over time, the negative thoughts can become less frequent as they have been dulled by the positive ones.
Journaling and engaging with therapy are also useful, as well as affirmations, which are similar to replacement thoughts. While positive affirmations may seem ineffective and like we don’t deserve to love ourselves, they too can become more natural and comfortable. Change only begins when we are uncomfortable.
https://psychcentral.com/blog/what-drives-our-need-for-approval#why-we-seek-approval
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