Why You Need to Stop Seeking External Validation
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Welcome to this episode of Embrace Your Real.
In today's episode, we'll explore the topic of confidence-boosting compliments and validation. Although compliments are commonly perceived as a means to elevate one's self-assurance, seeking external validation for self-worth can prove to be counterproductive in the long term.
Our pursuit of approval from others can hinder the development of genuine confidence, which is derived from an internal source. While receiving compliments can be pleasant, relying on them solely to feel good about ourselves is ultimately ineffective.
Join us in this episode as we delve deeper into the intricacies of the relationship between compliments and confidence, and why true confidence comes from within.
What I discuss:
Respect yourself.
Celebrate your successes.
Embrace your imperfections.
Practice self-compassion: Be kind and gentle with yourself.
Take risks: Push yourself out of your comfort zone and try new things.
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Transcript:
Hey. Hey, beautiful human. Can I steal 5 minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with Me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned. If you're ready to embrace your real, let's get it. Let's go!
Hello and welcome back to another bonus episode.
Compliments are often thought of as a way to kind of boost self-confidence. Like we seek validation from others, hoping that their kind words will help us make us feel better about ourselves. Whether we like that or not. It's just a human thing that we do. And while receiving compliments can be nice, seeking them out as a way to build confidence is ultimately ineffective. True confidence truly comes from within. It comes from the source. In my opinion. I'm a believer in Jesus Christ. I believe our confidence is found in God and truly likes seeking. External validation can actually be harmful to our self-esteem in the long run. And so that's why in today's episode, I want to discuss that. But before we dive in, I want to share this review. It comes from Nikki Vibe. She gave a five star review and said, Wow, only a week in and I'm hooked. I usually listen to music during workout and now I don't turn off Embrace your L. This helps me with myself, my business and my family life. Thank you, Julie, for helping my confidence. Well, I'm so grateful that you have made the switch successfully from music to podcast. I kind of go back and forth. I go through phases. I'm curious, what about if you guys are the same way? If you listen to only podcasts or only music, or if you're a hybrid of both? I've also heard people say I listen to music during my workouts, but for my walks I listen to podcast. So curious about that Damn the show Instagram. Embrace your rail and tell me if you listen to podcasts or music during your workouts. Okay, so let's dive in to why seeking external validation won't make you more confident. So when we seek compliments, we're essentially outsourcing our self-worth to others, like replacing our confidence in the hands of someone else rather than building it up ourselves. Like, let me repeat that. When we see competence, we are essentially outsourcing our self-worth to others. We're placing our confidence in the hands of someone else. This can lead to a cycle of seeking validation where we constantly crave more compliments in order to feel good about ourselves. The problem with seeking comp, like seeking out compliments, is that it's such a temporary fix. Like it might make us feel good in the moment, but it doesn't actually build lasting confidence. In fact, relying on external validation can actually make us more insecure over time. When we seek validation from others, we're essentially telling ourselves that we're not good enough. And this can lead to this negative self-image, this lack of self-worth. And especially if we go through this period where we're not getting that external validation, which will always happen, then we're in this pit hole, like we're in this hole of just like, Oh my gosh, I'm worthless. I don't have purpose or meaning to my life. And it's like so defeating. In addition, seeking compliments can really lead to fear of criticism, like we can become reliant on praise from others and then we become afraid of negative feedback. We avoid situations where we might be criticized or judged because we are afraid that it will damage our fragile sense of self-worth. Like this can lead to a lack of growth development as we avoid taking risks or trying new things for fear of failure. So if seeking compliments won't make us more confident, what will? Well, in my opinion, we are here to focus on our own strengths, our own abilities that God has given to us for a specific purpose of bringing Him glory rather than seeking validation of other people. Because we each have a unique fingerprint to live on this world. Like, I think that oftentimes when we're in this cycle of seeking validation, if we're not getting it, then it's we're constantly questioning our self-worth. And that is just I mean, that is such a vulnerable, fragile place to be, because one day you can be on the mountain peak and the next day you can be in the valley low. But it's all based off other people. It has nothing to do on anything consistent. And so in my just in my personal life and what I have found to be the most sustainable is coming from the source. And the source is looking to God to give me that confidence. Like my confidence is found in God because God tells me that I'm beautiful. He tells me that I have purpose. He tells me that I have gifts and talents to bless his world. And so as a result, I look to him rather than external things that are fleeting, to be honest, like they will one day they'll be there and the next day they're gone. And and so. So how can we get this validation not from other people? Well, I think, number one, you have to respect yourself. You have to show respect. You have to respect your body. You have to respect your needs. You have to respect your time. Like you have to have this self of self respect that you likely have for other people, but you might not have for yourself. Number two, I think it's really important that you celebrate your successes, like you don't need to wait for other people to celebrate. You can celebrate yourself like take time to accomplish or acknowledge your accomplishments like big and small personally. I always when I'm doing my journaling in the morning and then sometimes I'll do journaling at night, but most of the times in the morning is when I'm just reflecting on the day prior and I'm like, Man, like, this is awesome that this happened. And I always like, I'm always giving praise back to God because honestly, everything that happens in my life, it's it's according to God's purpose, like good or bad. And, and often times like the bad things like, yeah, they suck in the moment, but then you look back and you're like, I am so grateful that I was refined during that process, or I'm so grateful that I learned X, Y, and Z during that process. Yeah, it was it was sucky to go through that. I remember there's so many tears, like months and years of tears, of waiting and hardship and all of these things. But I'm so grateful that I did that. But I truly believe that having a practice where you can kind of reflect on all the things that you have gone through and do that regularly so that you're not forgetting certain things. Because oftentimes, like there's so many things that happen throughout a day that you almost forget. And if so, if it's not a regular practice of you doing it, you know, on a daily or weekly basis, like you're going to forget certain things that you accomplished. And I think it's really important that you are able to kind of reflect back on that. And it also just kind of builds your confidence when you're able to be like, Dang, I actually was able to accomplish that. Like, that's really freaking cool and it will give you the confidence needed to take the next step. Number three, I like embrace your imperfections. I don't want you to seek out compliments for your imperfections. Learn from my mistake. I did that for literally years. Like I would say certain things in front of people only because I knew they would say certain things back and like. Yet when they said those things back to me, it didn't give me any sense of confidence because it was just this empty validation. And so I have just found to really look at and appreciate all of the quirks and uniqueness to myself. You know, I don't think anything's imperfect. I mean, in terms of like everything has a purpose. Like, yes, we're imperfect people, but I don't think that we have like, I don't know, I just look at imperfections differently. I think that our flaws, our quirks, all of those things are what makes us unique and special. And so if we can look at them through a different lens, that can really change your outlook. Number four, practicing self-compassion, like being gentle, being kind with yourself, especially when things don't go as planned. Treat yourself with the respect that you treat your best friend, your mom, your sister, your friend with empathy, with understanding, with gratitude, like we which I will do an episode on this next week, but like we have to become our own best friend. I think that's so important that we become like, hi person, because at the end of the day, like nobody's going to live on our skin besides us for the rest of our earthly life. So like, why not make peace with yourself and become your own best friend? And then lastly, take risks. You've got to push yourself outside of your comfort zone. Try new things. Except though, like as you're trying new things, accept that failure is a natural part of the learning process, and I want you to use that as an opportunity for growth. I always say fail fast so you can succeed sooner. A mentor has told me that a number of years ago, and I just remember it stuck with me because it's like the faster you fail, the quicker you're on the road towards succeeding. Whatever that looks like for you and succeeding will look different for each person, Whether that is succeeding in having more time and having more energy, in having more financial freedom in whatever it is like, whatever your idea of success is, the sooner that you fail, the faster you're on the road towards success. And just knowing that we're going to have failures along the way. And those are they're, in my opinion, to refine us and to teach us. And if every single failure that we go through has the opportunity to be life changing for us, but it really comes through a perspective shift. So ultimately, I believe that seeking compliments from other people really like seeking that external validation, it will never make you more confident. True confidence again comes in my opinion. It's found in God and what He says about me. It also helps me to focus on developing unique strengths and gifts and talents and ability. Like I believe that when I shift my focus off of what are other people saying about me to how can I grow in my strengths, how can I become better in this specific area? The gifts and talents, the abilities that I've been given. It allows me to just be more productive with my time and ultimately remember that we're here on this earth for so many purposes. And one of those purposes or many of those purposes is to use those gifts and talents that you take time to cultivate for his glory so that he can use you far beyond your wildest comprehension if he if you allow him to. And so, again, just taking that the perspective shift off of what our other people saying about me or trying to gain this external empty validation to internally. Okay, how. How can I show up? How can I. Like, respect myself? How can I celebrate the successes that I'm going through? How can I really learn to embrace that uniqueness and the flaws in the works that make you special? How can I be gentle and kind with myself? And how can I put myself out there? How can I try new things and cultivate a deeper level to my gifts and talents? And man, when you do that. Like, you will find that your confidence is no longer this roller coaster of emotion because it's not found anywhere else but within. Like it's found for me. Like I said, it's found within knowing that God loves me. He calls me beautiful. He has a purpose for my life. And it's found in his words, like it's found in meditating, in his word, and spending time with him in prayer. And I have just found that that is the most sustainable source of confidence because it ultimately is connected to my creator and it's not connected to anything on this earth, which is fleeting. And so, yeah, I hope that this gave you just a perspective shift. If anything, please just be gentle with yourself, Practice that self-compassion and know that it will always turn up empty when you're seeking this external validation from other people. Like it will always come up empty and you'll constantly be up and down in your emotions and constantly having, you know, so much self-confidence that's actually inflated self-confidence. It's not real self-confidence that lasts and then down to no self-confidence because so-and-so didn't do what you thought they would do. And you're relying so heavily on that on them to say something or do something. So that's all that I have for today. Sister Real Talk. I hope that you found this helpful. I hope that you got something from this. If you have a friend or a coworker or someone in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this specific episode, I just ask that you share it out with them. You can copy the link and send it to them and text message. You can also screenshot this and post it up on your Instagram story. I love seeing your aha moments. You can also DM the show Instagram embrace are real and we love connecting you guys. I love you so dang much. I mean it and I'll talk to you next.
Oh. All right, sister. That's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so. Julie a lot better. Yes. It's an in the middle for that daily post workout. Real talk, healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace real because you're worth it.