Gift Yourself Self-Validation this Valentine’s Day
Self-doubt is real. It’s unavoidable. As long as you’re human and have felt limited by either your own failures or others’ successes, you will at some point doubt yourself.
Self-doubt is the loud voice in your head keeping you from being your most authentic self. It’s the thing that kills dreams. Hushes self-love. Feeds anxiety and depression.
When we doubt ourselves, we often turn to external validation in hopes that some outside source will tell us that we are indeed the person that we want to be or think we are.
This desire for and attempt to receive external validation comes in many forms. It’s telling your parents about every small or big success to prove that they did raise a good kid. It’s fishing for compliments. It’s downloading Tinder or Hinge yet again, but just to “explore your options” rather than to seriously date someone.
But in my deepest moments of self-doubt, not even 1000 compliments from others could shut up that annoying voice in my mind telling me the opposite. Validation from others sometimes doesn’t stick. In those moments, I couldn’t even appreciate other’s affirmations because I was unconvinced of them myself.
This funk is not easy to get out of. To convince myself that I am strong, beautiful, and worthy can be challenging when day-to-day interactions with others or even myself often lead me to doubt any of these characteristics. Even partial self-validation can be dangerous — yes, I’m beautiful. But not as beautiful as they are.
But especially as we approach Valentine’s Day, a day notorious for amplifying external validation as a way to prove love exists, I will strongly urge you to use self-validation to create enough space not only for you to love yourself, but also for you to accept love from others.
Ask Yourself Why and Why Not
TLDR: get to the root of your insecurity, understand the worst case, try…even the worst case is an opportunity to learn.
As I mentioned before, self-doubt is normal and unavoidable. It’s how you respond that counts.
Whenever you doubt yourself or feel that you’re not *insert adjective here* enough, ask yourself “why”? And chances are, you’ll need to ask it a few times to get to the root.
For example — “This company would never hire me.”
Why?
“I’m not skilled enough for the job based on the job posting.”
Why?
“The job requires so many skills, but I’m only super comfortable with 60% of them.”
Once you really hone in on the the root and specifics of your self-doubt, ask yourself what’s the worst that could happen. In the example above, the company doesn’t hire me.
Is even the worst case scenario something I can live through and grow from? Yes? Then give it a try. Perfection and the fear of failure keep us from trying new things. But discomfort and failure accelerate growth far more than an easy success.
“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can” — Frida Kahlo
Daily Affirmations to Commitments
Hal Elrod’s “Miracle Morning” includes the importance of self-affirmations. These are realistic affirmations to the commitments we set for ourself, and they are specific.
Be very specific about what you’ll do and when you will do it within a given day. Setting a schedule for yourself to achieve these daily commitments can be helpful in holding yourself accountable to get them done and set you up for success.
An affirmation may be: “I’m committed to my goal to run a marathon later this year. Today I will run 5 miles before noon.”
Completing realistic goals that progress us toward the people we want to be assist with self-validation in that we’re reminded of our capabilities and priorities.
Be Realistic With Yourself
I’m an overachiever. Some days, I take a look at my insanely long list of to-do’s and proclaim “if I finish all of these tasks, today will be a perfect day!”
But that list is never realistic. In fact, I’m setting myself up for disappointment and a spiral of self-doubt.
Every morning, I write down the top 3 priorities I have in a day for different aspects of my life. An easy way to split these lists would be Personal vs Professional/Career priorities.
What 3 things absolutely must get done?
There are unfortunately only 24 hours in a day. Be realistic with yourself and what you want to (or don’t want to) achieve in a given day. Small wins are still wins. And each win today prevents us from doubting ourselves tomorrow.
Embrace Those Failures
Convincing myself of the importance of embracing failure has been the most critical component of my relationship with that doubtful voice in my head.
Every opportunity ends in one of two ways:
Success
An opportunity to learn and grow
With the right mindset, the opposite of success is not failure. It’s learning.
In fact, failing propels us even faster toward the people we’re meant to be. Embrace the discomfort, reflect on how to improve for next time, and react by being proactive the next time you face the same obstacle.
With this in mind, you’re more likely to be focused on how your previous experiences could help you get through new obstacles rather than doubting your ability to overcome them in the first place.
Call Yourself Out on Your BS
Sometimes I don’t even give myself the opportunity to grow or reach goals because I don’t make time for it.
Patterns break patterns. An instance may disrupt a pattern, but if you really want to change something about your day-to-day, you’ll need to create new habits that reflect the person you’d like to become.
A big one for me — eating healthier meals. A salad one day does not = health. But a pattern of healthier meals? That sounds better.
I think about Kobe Bryant a lot when it comes to the proof of consistency. The legend’s thoughts on consistency and growth:
“It’s just consistency. That’s all it is, consistency. You don’t build an entire package of the game in one summer. You focus on one or two things throughout the summer… You master those things. Then the following summer, you focus on another one or two things. Then the following summer, it’s another one or two things. Five years from now, you have a game that has no weaknesses in it. But it’s not done in one summer. It’s about having a five-year plan, a ten-year plan, and understanding how to get there.”
Any expectation for instant satisfaction or perfection could lead to self-doubt when you don’t achieve something immediately.
But good things take time. Give yourself credit for your growth so far and note that the change you want to see for yourself can’t happen overnight.
Remember: a marathon is a combination of many small steps.
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Overall, that annoying voice in your head telling you you’re not good enough is normal and with you forever. But there are ways to quiet it down a bit.
You are the only person responsible for believing in and validating yourself. External validation isn’t a bad thing, but it’s not the solution to self-love and self-validation.
Set goals, dedicate yourself to commitments, accept failures in a positive way, and remember that you are the most you version of yourself today. Give yourself some credit for this lifetime of growth so far.
