External validation is damaging your health
By: Arnold Beekes
Tags: Confidence, Health, Self Compassion

External validation is damaging your health

Our parents and education system teach us to be focused on external validation.

As children we long for approval and compliments from our parents. Many children feel lonely, stressed and not seen as they are not getting that validation from their parents. The opposite is also true as there are children who get compliments all the time. They are part of the entitlement- generation that thinks that they are great and can do nothing wrong.

This reliance on external validation is strengthened at school. You are pushed to focus on getting good grades. It doesn’t matter whether you have mastered a certain topic or whether you have contributed in class, just the numbers count.

The likes in social media have worsened this situation. People are expecting a certain number of likes and if they don’t get them, they feel sick and possibly depressed.

Above all, external validation forces you to be focused on the other(s). On the approvers, on the people who will give you the grades and likes. This focus on the other removes you from the focus on yourself. Whereas self-reflection is critical for learning. Know thyself is an age-old truth. But many people have no clue who they are or what they want, as they are totally not used to look inside. By staying focused on the external world, you will get further away from yourself. And that will sooner or later have a negative impact on your (mental) health.

We are all impacted by this conditioning to strive for external validation. Have a look at Tony Hsieh from Zappos who was constantly trying to please his friends. He even paid some a salary to move to a new location, so that he wasn’t lonely. People stay in a relationship even when they are abused. We love compliments. My mother always asks when she has done something “I did good, didn’t I?” I did the same by talking to friends who mainly benefited from me and that make me feel good. It is all happening because in our youth we were not seen nor heard and not good enough, so we try to compensate that empty feeling, that void with validation from others. Someone heard some nice music and wanted to dance, but she didn’t do it because she said “I am not a good dancer”. This fear for other people’s opinions (FOPO) is preventing her to do something that she loves!

We have to fill ourselves and we cannot expect others to fill our emptiness.

It is unhealthy to continuously be a beggar for someone else’s approval. The more you are dependent on others, the further you are removed from yourself. But fulfillment, peace, and joy are only sustained from the inside out. By handing over the control of your inner life to others, you cannot maintain any level of happiness. Rather the opposite, as the addiction to approval will dictate how you feel. If you are approved you will feel good, just for the moment. If you don’t get the approval, you will feel lousy until you get the next few approvals.

If you care about your health, it is time to start observing your thoughts and emotions. Just start to see what is happening. And most important, be kind and compassionate to yourself.

By getting to know yourself, you will take back control. You will notice that you are in control of your own health and happiness. And that you can feel much better, even without external validation.