Stop Seeking For Validation

We grow everyday and we keep evolving. I saw a post on instagram somedays ago that says, ‘in your 20s, you keep wondering about what people will say about you; in your 40s, you stop caring about what they say about you and in your 60s, you realise that they never cared at all.’ Could this be true? Well 99% of my answer will be yes. So many youths today are trying to impress someone and I don’t even know the value that gives them. You should impress your conscience and not people. If you keep impressing people in your life, what now happens when those people are no more? A friend of mine almost lost a very nice person in her life because she kept worrying about what her family will think of him, when they see her with him. In her head, he is not good enough for her family but he is good enough for her. In this scenario, she was putting her family first before herself but at the end of the day, she is the one getting married to him and not her family. Do the following to stop seeking for validation:

Practise self-love

I made a post earlier on self-love and I think you should check it out after this one. If you love yourself, you will know what is best for you. Do not let anyone to love you better than you love yourself. Do what makes you happy as long as you are not hurting anyone. Loving yourself and knowing what you want in life, whether in the short run or long run will help you to know what is best for you. Some grown men and women today are living the lives of their parents. They act because their parents said so. You are unhappy as a lawyer but you are practising law anyway because it makes your father to be proud of you. Yeah our parents are very important to us but they should not be the one to choose for us. They had the right to choose for us when we were kids but that should not be the case when we are adults. As adults, our parents should only advice us and not choose for us. Even in choosing a spouse, some parents choose for their children. Why not just guide your adult child and not choose for him or her.

Loving yourself will also help you to withstand peer pressure. Don’t go for a christian fellowship twice a day because your friends are going, go because it is what you want. Even God gave us the choice to choose him or not choose him. I had this experience in my second year as a medical student. My choir leaders were complaining that I don’t go for the two fellowships. Going for just one of the fellowships in a week was enough for me. I can’t let anyone choose for me on how to serve God. At the end of the day, the relationship between God and I will always be best known to us. No matter how much they complained, I still did what I wanted. I didn’t want to serve God for them, I want to serve God for me. Also, I’m a student, my studies is very important to me in as much as I love God very much. I knew my aim for my academics and it was evident that how I took my studies wasn’t how they took their studies. Someone else might go for two fellowships in a week adding to rehearsals on Saturdays and church on Sundays and still come out best in his or her class, and someone else might do it and his or her academics will suffer. So at the end of the day, know what works best for you and don’t let your friends or peer pressure choose for you. We all have different purposes in life and different targets too. Some people are born with golden spoons while others are born with wooden spoons. For some folks, after the university, they already have a job waiting for them in their father’s company while for others, they really need to work hard to earn a job in any company or hospital incase you are a doctor or a nurse. If you are reading this article today, sit down and ask yourself this question, ‘are all the decisions I made from me?’ What ever answer you get, will tell you the adjustments to make.

Stop being indecisive

I used to be under the spell of indecisiveness and this almost destroyed me. I won’t say that it has vanished completely but I know that it has reduced to minimum. I used to be very indecisive in almost everything. To buy a common gown, I will spend hours trying to choose one but I went shopping with a guy and he chose his cloths within minutes, I just knew right there that I needed to solve my indecisiveness. You might think that I was indecisive only in clothes, it affected every aspect of my life like in choosing a boyfriend and choosing to go for a seminar. Being indecisive made me go to my friends to choose for me. I would ask them, do you think I should date him or do you think I should wear that dress or that shoe or buy that cream. Trust me, it was horrible. Up to my twentieth birthday, I have been tossed to and fro but I know better now. When ever this tiny nature of me comes up, I just give myself time. I stopped going to my friends to ask them what they think or to choose for me. Giving myself time, allows me to weigh the situation, find out the advantages and disadvantages of any decision I want to make. To my best of knowledge, it worked. Sometimes I make mistakes but I learn from my mistake and move on.

Stop waiting for complements

Some folks want to hear from others that they look good before they know that they actually do. Why must you wait for people to validate your look, didn’t your mirror answer that question? Not just in looks, even in our works. Some people think that they are not good enough and so they don’t apply for a challenging job. Maybe you did a presentation but because people didn’t comment about it, you start thinking within you that maybe you gave a horrible speech. Before you give a speech, you should think about what you want to say and who you are speaking to, I think that should help. Seeking for help in your work or school project is different from seeking for validation. Maybe you are still a novice at the job, it is ok to ask people to teach you because I believe that in life, we are all students. We must be humble enough to learn from others no matter the level we found ourselves. Don’t go for a job with the fear that your employer might not like your work, rather go for a job knowing that you are good at what you do and you will offer the best to your employers.

Stop counting your likes on social media

This sub-heading made me chuckle a bit. Since when did what people say about you on social media matter? In as much as we benefit from social media, it is also causing harms to many. Some people are even living fake lives on social media, just to be famous, counting their likes and comments. It sounds funny but it is the absolute truth. Stop letting what strangers think of you matter so much especially the sad comments. In my opinion, a lot of people are doing so many things on social media even the things they don’t like, just to be validated. Who cares really? If really you are on social media for validation reasons, I think you should think about it deeply. At the end of the day, you are the only one that understands what is going on in your life. Don’t live your live for others, live it for yourself.

---

Do you want to study abroad? Book our services for help.