Transcription
If you have to pick up the phone and call somebody after you've been triggered or are going through negative emotions, if you have to run your big and small decisions—like what picture you should post on Instagram—by somebody, if you struggle with rejection and your emotions are affected by other people's opinions of you, then you especially need to watch this video.
Seeking validation is the fastest way to betray yourself. In the process of doing so, not only are you saying you don't trust yourself, but you're also saying that you rely on others to have better self-worth and that external opinions are more important than your own. After a while of engaging with this behavior, not only will you lose yourself, but you'll also find it difficult to love yourself. You could spend your entire life chasing others and still never feel fulfilled because you haven't taken the time to build a safe, supportive, validating, and loving home to come back to within yourself.
That's why this video is all about how you can learn to finally validate yourself. Learning to validate yourself will maximize your independence, allow you to get to know yourself fully so you can actually be your own best friend, and provide an effective practice to grow your self-love. My favorite part? It will help you manage your thoughts and emotions much better.
As always, I'll leave the video chapters on the side of the screen so you can get to know the structure of this video. Also, make sure you follow my Instagram because every single week, before I record a YouTube video, I always put out a Q&A on the topic of that week's video. This way, you can let me know any questions or queries you have on the topic that you want me to touch on. I've looked through all of your answers and incorporated some of those questions throughout this video to help as many of you as I possibly can.
Let's get to the root of this because once you understand fully where it's coming from, you can work back from it effectively. Seeking validation is a very common thing, but it looks different in every single person. This is because there are five types of validation you can seek:
1. **Romantic/Male Validation**
2. **Social Media Validation** (likes, followers, etc.)
3. **Community Validation** (what I like to call popularity validation—wanting to be accepted by other people, the cool kids, friends, etc.)
4. **Familial Validation** (this is when you'll bend over backwards to do anything that will make your family proud, even if it's not very self-serving to you. You'll allow family members or parents to overstep your boundaries because you just want them to accept and love you.)
5. **Academic Validation** (when you attach your worth to grades, achievements, and success.)
The reason people seek validation is that they are placing their self-concept and self-esteem in the hands of others, such as their approval from other people or from external factors like grades. You are placing your self-love and self-worth on something outside of yourself, which literally makes no sense. That's why it never works long-term. It's a never-ending cycle. You might get the likes and followers, you might get the guy to like you, you might be in with the popular kids, but then you're chasing it over and over again and never feeling fulfilled. You are always chasing something because you are chasing the wrong thing. Validation starts and ends within yourself.
Seeking validation is caused by having a very weak self-perception, which is built on a shaky foundation of your self-worth. What I mean by this shaky foundation of self-worth is that an insult, online trolling, or even disapproval from a stranger can cause insecurities within yourself because you haven't built that strong foundation.
So how can we reverse seeking validation from other people? The best way is to close the gap between your public and private self. We want to take it from here to here so it's the same person. Many of us build a persona that we use in social settings—our public self—and we carefully curate this public self so that we can gain the desired perception we want other people to have of us. For example, we might try to be quieter or have fewer opinions so no one disagrees with us and we're not controversial. We might water down our personality because we think that's the only way we'll get more friends. You know, like when you meet someone for the first time and think, "Don't be too much," or "I have to be a bit more of a refined, perfect, polite, nicer version of myself."
Now let me reassure and validate you: it is not your fault that you seek validation. The reason that you do is probably that you received little to no validation when you were a child or maybe you didn't receive validation when you were growing up in your teenage years from your family, friends, or even your teachers. Validation is an underrated form of love and acceptance, and it should not be held back from anyone. If it was held back from you, then of course you're going to have unhealthy coping mechanisms like people-pleasing or seeking male validation or attaching your worth to your academics. That is not your fault, and I'm so sorry that that's the place you're in.
However, although it is not your fault, it is your responsibility to make a better life for your present self. It is your mission to be there for yourself so you don't keep suffering in the long term. Because at the end of the day, you are—and you need to believe that—you are beautiful enough, you are smart enough, you are desirable enough, and you are worthy enough of everything you want. You are worthy enough to be validated just from yourself, and you need to hold that self-validation to such a high standard that the opinions of others no longer hold any significance to how you feel about yourself.
This is the perfect time to bring in male validation. This is something I struggled with for so many years. It's a never-ending path of trying to fill a hole within yourself that only craves self-love. But that's hard, so you go out and seek it from other people instead. A compliment, a text from a guy, or being asked on a date is quick and easy and will give you that dopamine hit so fast, but it will not fulfill you long-term.
So let's cut that out. First and foremost, take men off the pedestal and put yourself on it instead. Affirm it: "I am that I always have been and I always will be, regardless of what anybody else says." I don't care if you believe it; you are going to say this to yourself enough times until you do. You are going to embody the energy of being your own "it girl" until it naturally becomes a part of you.
Also, just because somebody else gets more male attention than you does not take away your beauty or your worth as a woman. Please do not let it define you because men's tastes are very questionable; they are not to be trusted. Men should be the last people to be the deciders of anybody's worth or beauty. It's 2023; we know how stupid men can be and the weird decisions they make, and yet you still trust that their opinion of you is valid.
Next, figure out your attachment style. If you are seeking male validation, then chances are you have some attachment issues. You could have an avoidant or an anxious attachment. Take a free test online, learn what it is, and then work back from it. Read your books, take online courses, join therapy if you have to. It is very possible, and I say this from experience because I used to be avoidant, and now I am secure. The majority of my issues around male validation came about because I was avoidant. I loved flirting and being a serial dater, but I also had a lot of internal insecurities, so I was placing my worth in the hands of men. By working on my attachment issues, mastering detachment, and working on my insecurities, I was good as new.
The next step is my favorite: take a male detox. For three months, six months, or even a year, do not date. No talking stages, no hooking up, no flirting—just loving your solitude, finding community, supportive friends, hobbies, and building up your dream life. After spending a year alone and not engaging in trying to impress men, trying to get them to like you, or trying to get them to choose you, you will become so magnetic, confident, and independent. Your aura will be amazing. Especially once you've taken that significant amount of time and spent it alone, you are no longer going to care what other men think about you because now you're used to not chasing it anymore.
It takes 30 days to form a habit, so I don't care how hard and uncomfortable it feels. For 30 days, you are not going to date or talk to a man. After a month, you'll be used to it. After a month, you'll be used to loving yourself and your own company. Then you keep it going. Your confidence increases, you become more independent, and you will skyrocket. You won't even care what a man has to say about you.
Also, please remember this: why do you need somebody else to tell you that you're beautiful or that they like you? You liking yourself is enough. You can stop there. "I am proud of myself for XYZ." Yes, maybe I have these few weaknesses and insecurities, and that's okay. That's human. That doesn't make me any less worthy. That doesn't make me imperfect. Even if I am imperfect, that's fine. But what I think about myself is the only thing that matters.
Now, let's talk about the next form of seeking validation, which is people-pleasing, and how this can make you lose yourself. I have had my own battles with this over the course of my life so far, even up until recently. I felt like I didn't feel worthy of friendship, so I would water myself down to be more digestible for others. I would push myself to fit into a smaller box so that more people would like me, or I would bend over backwards to do favors for people and impress them so that they'd like me and approve of me. In doing all of that, I lost myself because I was signaling to my brain that my choices are not enough. Me just being authentic, as I am, isn't enough. I had this limiting ongoing belief that I have to perform and earn other people's approval.
I can happily say I'm no longer in that place, and this is how. I spent so long growing my self-love through spending time by myself in my solitude. The thing is, seeking validation and people-pleasing is a very addictive behavior, and it can turn into a never-ending cycle, just like many other forms of validation. So sit with yourself and start practicing what it's like to spend time with yourself and how fun it can be. Over time, you'll enjoy it a little bit more each day. When you've fallen in love with yourself in your solitude, your standards go so high.
My dating standards and my friendship standards are equally high, and not enough people talk about this. There's so much emphasis on having such a big list of rules and high standards for dating men, which of course there should be, but you should hold the same standards for your friendships. For who you allow to take up your time, energy, space, resources, emotions, love, affection, and care. I am so picky now because I don't mind being alone. I'm happy with it. That's how I protect my peace and my energy. That's how I stay feeling good about myself because now at least I don't have toxic friends. At least I'm not bending over backwards for people who wouldn't do the same for me.
On top of this, once you are confident in spending time alone, and once your standards have been raised to the roof, you can now set boundaries without fear. A lot of people tell me that they struggle with setting boundaries. Really, this is a result of a lack of confidence and also because you tend to be a people pleaser. You are afraid of letting other people down or disappointing them. But the right people aren't going to be disappointed when you set your boundaries; they will respect them. When you spend time alone and have those high standards for friendship, you will be able to protect yourself and avoid those leeches that make you feel bad for setting boundaries.
A very important element to stop seeking validation is to stop giving enough, and this is how you do it. Remember that everything is temporary and that one person's disapproval of you is a singular moment in time. That moment will pass, and they will forget about you before you know it. Plus, nothing really matters, and we're all living on a floating rock, and we are one of eight billion people. Let that sink in: nobody cares that much.
I am never going to be that person that says that nobody cares about you because, truthfully, yes, people stab, people laugh, they point, they insult, they judge, they talk behind your back. I've experienced it all. Sometimes people do care about what's going on in your life because it makes them feel better about themselves to judge you. But nobody cares that much because when they go home and they're working, they are doing other things. They're about to fall asleep at night; they are not still thinking about you. When they are at work and going through stresses, trying to be productive, or dealing with issues with their family, they are not still thinking about you. People have their own lives, and yes, they will occasionally judge you and project their insecurities onto you, but it never matters enough for that moment to last more than five minutes. After that, they will forget about you and move on to worrying about their own life or judging another person. So if they're forgetting about it, you should too. Let it go.
The next step is a crucial one: focus so hard on bettering yourself and your life. In the process of achieving self-love, self-growth, and achieving all of your life goals, you will have built up so much pride, confidence, and independence that your newfound fulfillment will protect you from falling back into your old unhealthy coping mechanisms like people-pleasing and seeking validation. This is the way you can stop second-guessing yourself in social settings, overthinking things, and chasing people. You need to invest your time and energy into something useful that will give you a great output in your own life, like setting up a business, putting more time into your hobbies, or joining a like-minded community of people.
That way, when the smaller stuff comes up—like when somebody disapproves of you or is judging you or talking behind your back—you literally won't be able to overreact or spend so much time thinking about it or even being upset about it because you are so preoccupied with how great you've made your life and all of the amazing things you get to do every single day. Your brain should be too full of your own passion and your mission in life that what anybody else has to say would never affect you because you're too focused on yourself.
Lastly, I want to say the fastest way to stop giving a damn is to remember that rejection is normal, losing people is normal, and outgrowing people is normal. If they cut you off or they don't like you, or your crush doesn't find you attractive—so what? That doesn't define you or your character or your worth. Some people just aren't meant for us, or sometimes we just deserve better. Sometimes we're going after something that we thought we wanted but actually should never have come into our life. Not everybody's meant for us, and you shouldn't even want everybody to be meant for you. It's a good thing that not everybody likes you; that protects you.
Every single human being on this planet, even the richest, most famous, and successful, are handed their own little bag of rejection, failures, and life lessons. It is nothing personal; that's just life. You are going to stop seeking validation by becoming secure in yourself and growing your self-worth. This is going to come about from you building up your self-schema. Yes, that's right; I'm bringing psychology up in here.
So what is self-schema? Self-schema is all about your self-image. It's about how you define yourself according to your personality traits, your behaviors, and maybe even your physical traits. Every single person on this planet has a certain set of beliefs that contributes to their self-schema, to their self-image. You have to do everything in your power to build up a positive self-schema so that you are no longer seeking validation from others. Having a solid self-worth will prevent you from seeking external validation.
So how do we do this? Identify your favorite parts of yourself. Really journey inwards to acknowledge how great of a person you are—all of these things, all of the qualities, things that you've done, achievements, just who you are as a person that makes you so amazing. Automatically, this will start helping you look at yourself in a positive light.
After this, you are going to write down all of the negative perceptions you have of yourself. Once you have a list of your negative self-beliefs, you are then going to prove every single one of them wrong. Of course, I'm going to give you an example.
Let's bring back Lola and Athena. Now, both Lola and Athena have the same negative self-belief: they are not beautiful; they feel very unattractive. Lola listens to this negative self-belief, so she hides herself away. She hides her face in pictures, chases other people because she thinks she's lucky when guys like her because she thinks she's so ugly. She doesn't go after certain opportunities because she automatically assumes she'll be rejected from them because she's just not good enough; she's just not attractive enough for that. She allows her negative self-belief to control her life and the way she sees herself, and this ultimately leads to her seeking validation from everyone and everything.
Now, Athena also believes that she's unattractive. Now we all know this ain't true; both of these women are gorgeous. Athena is that girl, okay? But Athena has had this negative self-schema, this negative self-belief for her whole life. She just cannot see the beauty in herself, but she is sick of placing her worth in the hands of others, and she wants to do something about it. She is now on a mission to see herself in a different light, a much better, more secure light.
So she starts experimenting with which haircut suits her face shape the best, which makeup products actually help effectively accentuate the great facial features she already has. She treats herself and buys herself a whole new wardrobe because playing with clothes is going to help her start stepping into her confidence. When you do little things like playing around with hair, makeup, and clothes, they provide that first step into confidence. Over time, once you've taken the first step, you can build yourself up to eventually feel confidence without having those things, without having the best outfit on or having your makeup done.
I speak from experience. Once she's experimented, she's got a new look, and she's feeling a little bit better about herself. She locks herself in her bedroom and decides to put on a little photo shoot of herself. She experiments with different lighting and angles; she really learns her face and what her favorite features are. She has fun with it, tries on a bunch of different clothes, does some crazy things with her hair, and takes a bunch of photos of herself. In doing so, she starts to see the beauty within herself.
Lola and Athena are both stunning in their own different ways. The difference is Lola decided to listen to her negative self-belief and live her life according to it. Athena wanted to prove that negative self-belief wrong, so she put on a photo shoot, tried doing some different things, and experimented with her appearance because she was bored with it. She didn't like it; she thought, "Yes, I'll change it up," and that's what she did.
Her seeing her appearance in a different light now makes her feel comfortable when somebody wants to take a picture of her. Now she has started building up the confidence to wear her favorite outfits in public and not want to blend into the crowd because she doesn't want to be seen.
My last point for this chapter is to look at who you are as your current self and nothing else. Start looking at yourself as the person you are now. Start acting like this morning when you woke up was the first day of your life. I did this a lot for years. Even at 20 or 21 years old, I was still viewing myself through the lens of who I was as my 15-year-old self, who was very awkward, nerdy, and insecure. She had a really bad self-image and a bunch of negative self-beliefs, like no one would like her, boys wouldn't like her, and she wasn't desirable or attractive.
Even when I was 20 and I had my little glow-up and had done a bunch of other things to help grow my confidence, I was still looking at myself like I was my awkward 15-year-old self. But that's not true. I have grown; I have newfound wisdom, intelligence, and beauty. I'm a whole different person. That's the beauty of self-growth.
So the way to start seeing yourself as your current version is to wake up every morning like today is the first day of your life. That's going to help you stop bringing in past rejections, mistakes, and cringy, embarrassing moments into your present life. It's going to help you stop defining yourself through your past mistakes and through the past versions of yourself, who you also need to give forgiveness to because they were who they were and acted the way they did because they had a certain level of awareness at that time.
You have grown since then. You do not need to keep looking at yourself through the lens of your past self. You need to ask yourself, "If I woke up today, if today was the first day of my life with the things I have, the things I've accomplished, and the newfound wisdom I have at this age, who would I be? What would I say? How would I act? What would I do?" Go into your day like that, rather than harboring all of this resentment for your past selves and your mistakes.
When you're still focusing on past negative memories of yourself, that is also what is impacting your self-schema, making it negative. I'm 22 now; this was me 10 years ago at 12 years old. Look at me. You can just see that I'm not confident and that I'm not feeling myself. Imagine if I still viewed myself through that lens. I wouldn't even be sitting here recording this video because I would feel so much shame about myself.
So not only did I have to go through self-growth to step into a new version of myself, but I had to shed the old version of myself so that I could allow a new perception to come into my life, stick with it, and believe it.
Now, the last most important chapter: how to become your own validation. The advice I'm about to give in this chapter will apply to all types of validation, but I'm going to be using emotional validation as an example throughout when I'm explaining everything. You are the only person in this universe that truly knows yourself inside and out. Not your parents, not your siblings, not your childhood best friend. Every single person in your life has a different perception of you. Your parents see you in a different light from your siblings, from your best friends, from your partner. Only you know your full life journey, your inner thoughts, your inner dialogue, and no one else's knowledge of you—no matter how long they have known you—could ever compare.
Therefore, other people could never accurately validate you because people's opinions and perceptions of you are based on their own life journey, their own mindset, their own upbringing, and their own trauma projections. Their opinions have nothing to do with you and everything to do with them, which means their validation of you isn't even real. Other people are incapable of validating you because they don't have all the facts. The only person that does have all the facts is you, which means you are the only person that can validate yourself.
This links to emotional validation. For example, if you're really upset, you're going through it, and something is happening, you're explaining to someone why you're upset and what this situation is, and their response to you is that you're overreacting, you should just get over it, or be positive—it's not that big of a deal; other people have it worse off. Like, I'm sorry, are you going through the same thoughts, emotions, and internal dialogue as me right now? No, right? So shut up.
You see, other people's brains and emotions aren't wired in the same way as ours. What affects us might not affect them in the same way. That doesn't make our emotions any less valid. They might have a completely different approach to the situation based on their own upbringing and mindset in comparison to us. Therefore, that does not put them in a valid position to validate you.
What you should do is what’s right for you, and only you can be the true judge of that. Other people's opinions of you do not lessen how bad your situation is. If it hurts, your pain is valid. If it's affecting your emotions and making you feel weird, if you are feeling affected by it, your pain is valid. You do not need someone else to validate your allowance to express your negative emotions, whether that be sadness, anger, or whatever. This is why self-validation is so important.
Here’s how you do it: I want you to take a break from calling someone, going to a family member, or friend immediately after you feel triggered or angered by someone, or you're upset about something. Because when that's your first course of action, that's you seeking validation for the way you're feeling from other people. It is absolutely okay to go to family and friends for help, but sometimes try and be there for yourself.
When you take this break from running to somebody else for help, you're going to start practicing dealing with and accepting your own emotions. Then you're going to either journal or video. I personally video. Now, everybody knows the great importance of writing down your feelings, journaling, all of that. I'm a big advocate for that. Personally, what I've started to do is hit record when I'm feeling sad. I literally get my phone out, record a video—even if I'm crying, I'm super angry, and my emotions are very high. Instead of calling somebody, I'll press record and just talk to myself in this camera as if I'm having a conversation with somebody. I can be completely authentic and unfiltered and talk for as long as I can because I'm actually in private.
Instantly, the weight of that bad situation has been relieved because I've released it. I've said it out loud. That allows me to process it. Plus, having this full-on conversation with yourself will also allow you to understand yourself and the situation and your emotions much better. Once I've recorded this video, I'm very aware of how I'm feeling. Maybe my emotions are still a little bit high, but I'm going to think about what I would wish somebody else would say to me if I were to call up a family member or friend and tell them what was going on in this situation. What would I hope to hear from them?
Then whatever I would hope to hear, I'm going to say that back to myself because that is what I deserve. Whatever validation you're seeking from somebody else, whatever sentence you wish they would say to you, say it to yourself. It's as easy as that. You know? "I see you. I accept you. It makes sense why you're upset about this thing. You are not overreacting. You are not a bad person for feeling this way. You are human. It is okay to also go through the negative spectrum of emotions. You are fully in your right to feel upset about this or be a bit moody or down. You did not deserve that treatment from that person. I'm here for you. We'll get through this. We'll resolve this issue. It will be better. But for now, if you need to feel your feelings and be angry, cry, get it out of your system—that is completely okay, and you are within your right to do that. In fact, that is a very healthy expression of your emotions to be able to deal and process the situation and then move on from it."
Sometimes it's hard for us to empathize with ourselves, so if you're going through that—maybe you're beating yourself up about responding to a certain situation in the way that you did—act like your friend actually went through that. Better yet, look at yourself through the lens of your inner child. Instantly, you will have so much more compassion for yourself, and you'll treat yourself with much more kindness, which is the key to validating yourself.
Be there for yourself and stop placing your worth and expectations in the hands of others. You can just be there for yourself, and that can be enough without seeking the approval of everybody else.
That brings us to the end of this video. I hope you guys enjoyed this video and learned something new. If you did and it helped you out, make sure you comment down below, like this video, and subscribe because I'm just churning out videos on YouTube right now, and I'm loving it.
Make sure you check out the description because it has all of my social links, and don't forget to follow me on Instagram, which is linked in the description, where I post on my stories little question boxes so you can have your say on what you want me to talk about in my weekly videos.
I'll see you in the next one. Thank you so much for watching and being here. I appreciate you. Bye!
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Lay down.
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