Like me, like me, like me!
Over-reliance on external validation is a fast track to misery.
Read time: Approx 3-5 mins
How much of your life…your actual, lived, Netflix-watching, partner-pleasing, job-hating, gym-membership-having life is yours? (In part, talking to myself here…)
How much of what you do every day is driven by your own weird, wonderful, unfiltered self…and how much is a performance for some invisible audience of hypothetical judgers? Your high school gym teacher. That one ex. Your dad, your boss, the barista you over-tip so they’ll think you’re generous and stable.
We’re all haunted. Not by ghosts…but by this endless, gnawing itch to be liked. To be accepted. To be seen a certain way. Not too much. Not too little. Just enough. The goldilocks version of you.
And it's f**king exhausting.
From the moment we realize other people can look at us and judge us, we start tap dancing. Maybe it's wearing the “right” jeans in middle school (which, by the way, are always wrong by senior year). Maybe it's pretending you enjoy networking events or posting curated sincerity on Instagram like it’s a spiritual tax write-off.
We craft versions of ourselves that are shinier, smoother, less unruly. We trim the weird edges, sand down the quirks. We package ourselves. And then, we wonder why we feel hollow.
It’s like building a house for someone else and then trying to live in it. Of course it feels off. Of course the ceiling leaks.
"If you don't make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."
-Carl Jung
Translation? That deep part of you that craves applause, that flinches from rejection, that secretly wonders if you’re lovable without achievements or cleverness or good skin? It’s running the show unless you drag it into the light and say, “Hey, I see you. You’re not in charge anymore.”
Until then, you’ll keep dating people who don’t get you, chasing jobs you hate, and wondering why your perfectly planned life feels like someone else’s vacation slideshow. It’ll feel like fate. Like the universe dealt you a weird hand. But really…it’s just unexamined wiring.
Here’s the thing about validation: it’s never full. You could get ten compliments and one snarky comment and your brain will cuddle up with the snark like a warm puppy and ignore the rest. External validation isn’t nutrition…it’s more of a sugar rush. Tastes great, crashes hard.
And yet…we chase it. From gold stars in school, to the dopamine drip of social media likes, to the climbing the hierarchical ladder in our workplaces, to the invisible scoreboard in our heads measuring how “together” we seem compared to others.
Trying to win a game built on external approval is like trying to win at Tetris. There’s no end. Just speed. Eventually, you lose. Always.
What Can We Do?
We get “weird.” And honest. And very, very tired of pretending.
We stop outsourcing our worth to the crowd. We stop contorting ourselves into whatever version seems most digestible. We get allergic to performative nonsense.
This doesn’t mean we become jerks or hermits. It means we live with a different compass. One that asks, “What feels right to me?” before “What will make them clap?”
It’s a subtle shift. But it’s everything.
Here are some signs you’re slowly reclaiming your life from the black hole of validation:
You feel a little dumber in conversations…but more real.
You start saying “I don’t know” and “I need a minute” and “No thanks” without spiraling afterward.
You make weird jokes at dinner that don’t land and don’t immediately self-destruct from the awkwardness. #DadJokes
You stop explaining your joy, your grief, your obsessions.
You wear the thing you like. You say the thing you mean. You disappoint people, sometimes…and survive.
Living in alignment feels weird at first. Like walking around without a mask in a masquerade. But eventually, you notice something odd…the right people find you. The ones who get you. And the rest? They fade, or try to convert you back into something safer for themselves. Either way, clarity.
Craving approval is not a bad thing…It’s human, and very much part of our biological and psychological wiring. Our nervous systems are literally primed to respond to social cues…it kept your ancestors from being eaten by wolves or voted off the cave island.
But this is a gentle act of dissent. A decision to choose your self.
You do not have to be legible to everyone. You do not have to be liked to be worthy. You do not have to become anything other than more of yourself.
That’s when your life really begins.
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