Validate Yourself First

Where do you seek your validation?

Is it from your friends? Your family? Your community?

It is a common and essential human need to want to be loved, to matter, and to belong.

We are wired this way, and we thrive this way.

The tricky part is, sometimes the need to belong to a certain group does not feel in line with who we are and what we want for ourselves.

Now this is fine, if the group is loving and accepting of each person’s individual expression, but many times we encounter people that can only see life through the one lens that they are looking through and find it difficult to comprehend anything out of that box.

As an entrepreneur, part of my job is to find creative ideas and solutions to bring to the table, and sometimes these ideas are met with resistance.

On one hand, I’ve been hold that I’m an idealist (on a few occasions), I’ve had others scoff at my ideas (that later on have successfully come to fruition), and I’ve had loved ones bring out the caution speeches when I’ve needed to pivot in my personal and professional life.

Even though many of these people have meant well, it can certainly be discouraging if you choose to listen to this side of the story.

On the other hand, I also have mentors and people that I look up to that sing a different tune. They say that entrepreneurs as leaders need to first see things better than they are and be creative in finding solutions to help people. They understand that mistakes are inevitable and one of the greatest forms of learning. In one of my moments of doubt, my husband, who is very supportive of my work, read for me this excerpt from Tony Robbins’ book Awaken the Giant Within.

“Great leaders are rarely “realistic”. They are intelligent, and they are accurate, but they are not realistic by other people’s standards.”

Such a profound and insightful excerpt.

At the end of the day, the contrast of these two groups could leave your head spinning. To seal the deal, I remembered a moment not too long ago, when I was feeling beaten down, discouraged, and unsupported (entrepreneurship with all it’s positives can also be a lonely, uncomfortable road at times) and I happened to stumble upon these 6 words:

Nobody is coming to save you.

Not really the positive, uplifting statement I was looking for, but the harshness of it struck a chord with me. When the reality of this statement sunk in, I knew I had a choice to make.

Spend the rest of my life seeking validation for myself and my work from others, or stand up on my own two feet and validate myself.

Now this does not mean that I don’t seek counsel or welcome advice and feedback from others; it does mean that I don’t allow the opinions of others to define me.

It is important that we learn to be our own cheerleaders, that we believe in ourselves and the work that we do. If we focus too much on the ups and downs of what others say (and we know that people will always have something to say), then we risk being tumbled around on an emotional roller coaster.

My hope is that after reading this, you will dig deep to validate yourself so you can show up as the best version of you in this world.

Wishing you love, joy and a ton of success …in all areas of your life of course ;)