How to Stop Seeking External Validation and Increase Your Self-Worth

When you’re high achieving it can be easy to attach your self worth to your accomplishments and this includes the external validation that you receive as a result of those accomplishments. This can look like only feeling good about yourself when you receive compliments, positive feedback, or any type of validation.

The problem with this is that it leaves you in a roller coaster of ups and downs. Feeling good when things are going well and feeling worthless when they aren’t. In this episode, you’ll learn how to stop relying on external validation so you can increase your worth and confidence from within. Welcome to Calmly Coping.

I’m your host, Tati Garcia. I’m a licensed therapist and a high functioning anxiety coach. Calmly Coping is the podcast for people who struggle with anxiety and high functioning anxiety. Each Wednesday, you’ll hear informative episodes with actionable tips about decreasing anxiety, adopting a healthy mindset, and managing your time and energy so you can live a calm and balanced life.

Let’s get started. Thank you so much for tuning in. Seeking external validation can actually be detrimental to your own self worth because it can leave you relying on validation, feedback, positive things from others in order to feel good enough about yourself. and leave you in this place of never feeling good enough.

Having a strong sense of self worth is the deep understanding that you are inherently valuable and you are deserving of love and happiness regardless of external achievements or validation. Maybe this is you if you only feel good when things are going well and you feel terrible when they aren’t. And of course, this is a common experience among all humans to feel good when things are going well and not so good when things aren’t going well.

But it’s also about how you feel about yourself as a person. If you feel as though there’s something wrong with me or I’m deficient or I’m not good enough, anytime you’re not receiving external validation or not accomplishing things, then that can very well mean that your worth is tied to validation and accomplishment.

So now let’s get into the tips to help you to feel good enough from within so you can stop relying on external validation. Tip number one is to get to the root cause. So it can be helpful to reflect on why you seek external validation. Is it because of past negative experiences you’ve had where maybe you’ve been put down by others?

Maybe it is trauma that you’ve experienced in the past or bullying or negative family relationships? Steps Maybe it is a fear of judgment from other people or societal pressures that you feel like you aren’t meeting up to. So it can be helpful to maybe keep a journal of the patterns that you notice and certain triggers for when you recognize that you are relying on external validation.

Are there certain situations? Is it from certain people? This can give you a clue as to what is at the root of your desire or your need for external validation. Tip number two is to practice self awareness. This is a separate piece than just understanding the root cause, but this is noticing what happens when you are seeking or relying on external validation.

What kind of thoughts do you experience? What kind of emotions come up for you? What are the beliefs that you hold when it comes to your own self worth? So what can be helpful in this situation is moments where maybe if you’re seeking out validation, so maybe you notice that you tend to fish for compliments, or you tend to hang on somebody’s every word when they say kind things about you, but then have difficulty either believing those things or saying the same kind things about yourself.

These can be examples that you can look into and explore what’s going on here. What kind of thoughts are coming up? Do I feel like what this person is saying makes me feel good, but maybe I don’t necessarily believe it? Or do I feel like they’re actually lying? Or do I feel like I need to seek out this positive feedback from other people because otherwise I won’t get it and that’s the only way I can feel good?

So kind of exploring any sorts of thoughts or. Emotions associated with that. Tip number three is to affirm your inherent worth. It doesn’t matter how much you accomplish. It doesn’t matter how much money you make. It doesn’t matter what kind of house you live in. It doesn’t matter what kind of relationship you’re in, what your family looks like, what your past has been like, what your intelligence level is or how attractive you are or any of that.

You are worthy exactly as you are and you don’t need to prove that to anybody. And affirming this worth that you inherently have can help you stop this cycle of constantly seeking it from other people. You don’t have to meet a certain level of productivity in order to be worthy of being loved or being admired or being respected by other people because you are an amazing person exactly as you are and with all your unique traits and qualities.

And so affirming your inherent worth can look like practicing positive affirmations, reminding yourself that you are worthy exactly as you are exposing yourself to other media, whether it’s podcasts or YouTube videos or whatever, or books that will help you to reinforce this concept that you are worthy.

My next step is to set a goal. Now, setting boundaries, and this is something that I teach in my calm, balanced and confident curriculum, is an important part of increasing self worth. Because when you set boundaries, you are communicating to yourself and to other people that you are worthy of having boundaries.

You have needs. and there are certain limitations that you have in order for those needs to be met, or certain things that you need to keep in mind in order to maintain boundaries. This can include saying no, this can include having cutoff times for work and reinforcing that it’s important to take care of yourself and you aren’t just somebody who needs to constantly work and achieve.

And this can also include in relationships. If you find yourself constantly saying yes or being understanding with other people and not communicating when you are upset with somebody or when you feel like something needs to change, then communicating these types of boundaries can also be helpful to increase your self worth.

It’s a reflection of the fact that you have needs that are just as important as anybody else’s. Tip number five is to practice self care. And this is another example. Similar to boundaries, when you practice self care, you’re communicating that my needs are important and it’s important for me to take care of myself.

And so this can include basic physical self care and hygiene. It can include things like exercise. It can include downtime. It can include hobbies, anything that you consider to be self care. It doesn’t have to be something that is working towards a goal that I’m going to accomplish this. But it could just be something that you are doing for the sake of doing it, for the sake of the process and the enjoyment of it.

Tip number six is to reflect on your values. If we are just seeking accomplishment and validation just for the sake of that, then it’s going to feel really empty. It’s not going to connect with anything. Whereas your values are the things that are. personally important to you. They are meaningful. And when you can identify your own personal values, this can give you a roadmap as to why you are doing the things you do.

Now, maybe your work is not always going to connect with your personal values, but maybe your work provides you with the ability to care for your family and your family is an important value to you. Whatever your values are, identifying those and being aware of those can help you connect back to them and have some sort of meaning in life and purpose in what you’re doing, rather than just getting degrees and promotions and raises and other achievements just for the sake of getting achievements. Tip number seven is to embrace your authentic self. I mentioned before that you are worthy exactly as you are and part of that is being comfortable with being yourself, being who you are authentically, not feeling like you need to be like anybody else or compare yourself to anybody else, but recognizing that you are unique imperfections and all. I used to think, especially when I started this podcast, that I needed to be this super outgoing and charismatic person and like super personable and have this huge personality and whatever.

And I felt like that’s the kind of person that I was. People want to watch and people want to see and that’s not necessarily my personality I’m somebody who’s more down to earth and I am myself in those sense that you know, I do have a sense of humor I can be sarcastic. Maybe I’m not sharing that on the podcast, but I can be comfortable just being myself because I know that there are going to be people who connect with that and connect with my message because of who I am.

And it’s the same for you. You don’t have to do things despite who you are, but because of who you are, you can show up as yourself. And it’s up to other people, whether they accept you that way or not. The important part is accepting yourself as you are, because that’s going to help you to feel more confident showing up in the world and validate your self worth from within.

And that brings me to tip seven, which is seeking and creating internal validation. So this can look like being your own cheerleader, affirming yourself, reflecting, looking back on achievements and accomplishments that you have made and celebrating those. things, being proud of yourself and saying kind things to yourself saying I am enough exactly as I am.

Anything that helps you to reinforce the concept that you are worthy. You don’t need to prove it to anybody and you don’t need to rely on external validation in order to feel good about yourself and worthy as a person. I mentioned my Calm, Balanced, and Confident curriculum earlier in this episode. If you’re looking for support to help you to achieve a calm mind, improve your work life balance, and feel more confident from within as a high achieving professional, this program is perfect for you.

And I have a free training to help you understand my step by step three phase process to help you achieve those goals. It’s called Achieve a Calm Mind, Balanced Life, and Empowered Confidence in 90 Days. You can learn more and register for free. for free by going to calmlycoping.com/workshop.

Remember you are worthy exactly as you are, and you do not need to prove that to anybody. The important part is about believing that within yourself and the tips that I shared in this episode can help you to start that journey. If you’d like to submit a question, comment, or message for the podcast, you can go to CalmlyCoping.com/message. I would love to hear from you. And while you wait for next week’s episode, I have other episodes about calming your mind, improving work life balance, and feeling more confident from within. Thank you so much for tuning in today and until next time, be calm. Thanks so much for listening.

If you like what you heard, please share this episode with a friend and please subscribe and leave me a review on iTunes. Also, remember to check me out online at CalmlyCoping. com and connect with me on Instagram at TatianaGLPC. All content here is for informational purposes only. This content does not replace the professional judgment of your own mental health provider.

Please consult a licensed mental health professional for all individual questions and issues. Till next time, I’m Tati, and this has been Calmly Coping.