Validation

Validation is all about confirming what we though in our gut with what is reflected to us from the outside world. It can take on many forms. Sometimes we receive validation on things we like about ourselves and sometimes on things we don't like.

So why is it necessary. Well from a very young age we start to learn to trust less and less that little voice inside us telling us the right thing for us. And so when we are not sure about if this is the right thing, we have been taught to not count on the sense we get within us and ask others outside of us what is right or wrong. It is basically handing over your power to someone else.

What we fail to do but I would argue should do more of is learning and understanding the subtle signs within all of us that we have forgotten or ignore.

Here are three ways that validation works.

You start to get a pull or sense that you should be doing some other work than what you are currently doing. And maybe along with that, you might be starting to feel less and less connected or more and more miserable with what you are doing day in and day out. What is you next step? Validation would tell you, because you have learned not to trust that little voice inside that you should probably reach out to someone else for their opinion. Sometimes that validation comes back and echoes what you are feeling in your gut, sometimes it doesn't. In which case, you then start to question even more that little voice inside nagging you to do something different. Feels like a conundrum inside a perplexity right?

You have an event to go to. It's a dress up type affair, so you go out and purchase a lace, red dress and when you put it on, you feel amazing and look beautiful. Like the dress was made for just you. You tell yourself, wow, this feels good. I've invested in myself and here's the reward. You make it to your event, people all around, and as you start moving around the group, no one has mentioned your pretty red dress, in fact when you look around, you start to notice that mostly everyone else has dressed pretty conservatively, and now you are not so sure you should have been so bold as to wear something so stand-out-ish. As the evening wears on you start to check the clock more, because your

discomfort grows, or worse yet, to avoid your feelings you start to drink. By the end of the night, you are a fraction of who you started out with. What happened there? You started out feeling so great? And then instead of being really good with your own feeling about yourself, you started to look outside to validate that feeling, and when insecurity crept in, your environment echoed it back.

Sometimes you can get positive validation. And its awesome when that happens, but if you can live your life without needing it you are better off. Here's the example, take the idea of starting a new business, You have a great idea about how you can help people, make your mark on the world and make money doing it. But building a business takes time, so you work really hard, and you keep doing the stuff that you internally feel is on the right track. You write blog articles, you reach out to people, you advertise, and you create classes. 12 months later, you are still not making money. This is the point where people who need external validation start to question. Am I doing the right thing? Am I on the right track? The internally connected person will say, I know I'm on the right track, and I am staying the course, because not only do I see how I can be successful, I also know it's only a matter of time, plus I just love doing it. External validation person says, this is hard, no one is telling me it's on the right track, in fact no one is telling me anything. See the difference?

Ok, so here is my advice for the day. Drop your need for validation. Connect back to your internal direction and where you know your heart will lead you.

Just a side note, that the articles I write here are often of the same subject matter that I need to hear right in the moment. I hope you find this valuable, but I don't need that validation even if you don't :) because it's good for me.

If you are having struggles with understanding where your need for validation comes from and how to shed the idea that you have to have it, I'm happy to meet with you to get to the root and release these issues.

www.jessicakippes.com