Imagine sitting in one corner of your house looking at your phone. You made a post on social media, and then you keep checking it to know if someone likes the post or has commented on it. When you get a notification sound of someone liking the post, there is a tiny rush of happiness that flows within you. This is what validation looks like. Simply put, validation is wanting others to tell you that you are important, successful, and smart. That is, you do things, not because you want to create impact, but simply so that others will notice it and make you feel important.
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What a lot of people do not know about constantly seeking for validation is that, seeking validation is just a way of handing over your power to someone else. When you constantly feel the need for validation, it might begin to affect how you see yourself and even your mood. When people cheer you, you will feel happy. But when they ignore you, you will feel sad, worthless, and undervalued. Imagine living a life that you cannot control, this is how validation works. You just live your life always trying to please people because you see them as the determinant of your life.
Now imagine living a totally different life from the quest for constant validation. Instead of asking if people will like you, or if they will approve of you, or if they like your post, it will be better to focus more on what to do for the people. That is, focus on creating value, not on how people feel about you. Value means what you can give to the people and the world around you, not what you will get from them. When you shift your mind towards creating value, you will stop worrying about people applauding you, and start thinking about what to do to improve on yourself, on your work, your skill, and to make people around you better. The truth is that when you create value in people they will naturally value you.
When you look at a fruit-producing tree for example, you will understand what it means to create value. When the tree is planted, it does not start to think of what people will imagine about it. It does not focus on wanting people to praise it or looking at other trees to know what they are doing. It just focuses on growing deeper roots and then start producing fruits because that is what it is designed to do. When it starts to produce fruits, it will begin to create value, and people will be attracted to it to pluck the fruits. The tree will automatically provide food for humans and for birds too, and that is what brings it value. You will agree with me that if the trees stops producing fruits for long, it will lose relevance. In the same way, your relevance in life is a function of the value you create.
When you shift your mindset from seeking for validation to creating value, your whole life will change for the better. You will experience ease, and stress will also reduce. This is because you are not living to impress anyone or to prove a point, but to make people better and to create impact. You no longer pretend to be perfect. You simply admit if things go wrong and then learn from them to become better. More so, you will also work better and get more results. For example, when a student is studying to get high grades just to impress their classmates, they may forget what they have studied after the exams. But when they study to understand the topic, they will be able to solve real world problems.
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You can start from where you are to make a shift from validation to value. In your next meeting for example, do not speak just to sound smart, but speak when you have something of value to say. After all, you are not speaking for applause but to bring solutions. Even when you use social media, do not be so concerned about followers count, but ask yourself if what you are posting is adding positively to other people's lives. This is how to create value. Do not do things because you want people to notice you, or because you want public validation, but because you want to create value and make someone feel better.
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