Stop seeking validation from others.
Continually seeking validation from others? Here’s how to stop.
I started thinking about this as I was getting dressed today. It’s Sunday in the old US of A, and Sunday means American football. Personally, I’m a Pittsburgh Steelers fan; however, I’m also a Cleveland Guardians fan. If your primary sport is football, you know how illogical this is. But that’s just how it is, I have my reasons. I was feeling insecure because I wanted to wear my Steelers jersey since they play today and my black Guardians hat because they had a huge playoff win last night. But in the back of my head, I was worried about what people would think if they noticed the mismatch. For as long as I can remember, I’ve sought validation from others. It started in elementary school and continues through today. While still a work in progress, I’ve found a way to minimize this from happening in my daily life. If you’d rather skip the content, although important to the conclusion, go ahead and skip to the last paragraph.
For as long as I can remember, I've sought validation from others. The earliest example that I can remember is when I started 1st grade in elementary school. Prior to October of 1997, I had been homeschooled by my mother. This did not go well. Unfortunately, I was very argumentative and really just flat-out rude to my mom while she was trying to teach me lessons. If I didn't want to do it, hell was going to be raised. I was an asshole child a lot of the time, not proud of it. In my defense, my mom was trying to teach me cursive writing and multiplication tables in kindergarten. She claims that this was in the curriculum at the time, but I have a hard time believing that since our local county didn't start cursive writing until 3rd grade. But I digress.
Either way, I was a jerk, and my mom enrolled me about a month late in public school. That was tough. Up until that point, I had had very little interaction with other kids, and all of the interactions I did have, I remember feeling anxious. I'm not sure how relevant this is to the story, but I feel that I should mention that I was an only child. This was the mid-90s, and while I don't remember all that was in style for elementary-aged children at the time, I do remember everyone, at least the boys, wore jeans. When I started school, I had exactly zero pairs of jeans. My mom dressed me in sweatpants or what would now be known as athletic shorts every single day. I immediately stuck out, being extremely shy and the kid that wore sweatpants every day. My dad was also a health nut at the time. He'd shop at whole-food markets and insist on us eating a certain way, which was kind of ironic since we were fairly poor and he had trouble staying employed at the time. This meant I had never tasted the wonderful goodness that was enriched white bread. I sat at lunch with my packed lunch that consisted of a whole wheat sandwich with some sort of fruit or other healthy side. I enviously watched other kids enjoy their processed breads with heaps of peanut butter and jelly falling out of their pieces of bread. To be fair, I didn't really know what I was missing, but to the kids who were eating Snack Packs, Hostess cakes, and bags of chips, I stuck out like a sore thumb.
I don't know if I was predisposed to it or it just kind of happened, but I immediately began to compare myself to the other kids. I insisted that my mom get me jeans so that I could be marginally less weird. I insisted that she get me white bread next time we went to the store. I didn't even know what white bread tasted like yet! I'm sure it's common at that age, but my need to be seen as "normal" was an overwhelming daily struggle. Even with all of my modifications, I was still friends with what was considered the weird kids. My best buddy, for example, was double-jointed and could bend his fingers and hands back, along with quite a few other tricks that were actually pretty awesome when you're a six-year-old boy. Throughout elementary school, I was friends with the nerdy kids and geeks. I tried to base my clothing and actions on what my friends were doing. I even tried to develop handwriting styles that were similar to a couple of them. How weird is that!? This mostly continued until I reached 8th grade.
During the summer between 7th and 8th grade, I discovered pop-punk in an age where music videos were still a thing. I couldn't get enough of it. My first love was Blink-182. I listened to their self-titled 2003 album more times than was probably healthy. Unfortunately, even this became a slight game of imitation. For the first day of school in 8th grade, I tried my damnedest to dress in the closest thing I could to how Tom Delonge dressed. This continued throughout the year. I constantly changed my style based on whatever band I was into at the time. Remember the "Ohio is for Lovers" by Hawthorne Heights music video? The black button-down and tight jeans that JT wore became a staple in my wardrobe. Another style staple I tried to imitate was Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy. I thought these guys were just the coolest. Now looking back, this may have been the closest I got to having an authentic style that was "me." I wore this stuff because I thought it was cool. It was edgy. It was anti-norm. I went to a middle school where most kids were moderately to extremely wealthy. They were wearing Hollister, Abercrombie, and American Eagle-type brands of clothing. Nothing said "fuck you" like skinny jeans and tight shirts or hoodies. This actually worked out pretty well for me. I did pretty well with the ladies that year and even made a friend group that ironically consisted of both emo kids and the rich kids. We all hung out on the weekends, not judging each other for whatever style we chose to dress in, not judging each other for how much money our parents had. A lot of kids peak in high school; I didn't. 8th grade was definitely the best year of my childhood grade school years.
This style continued through high school until 10th grade, where I went from my “emo” phase, which I think is naturally me, to wearing polos and khakis because that's what the popular kids at my high school wore. All of a sudden, I cared what they thought and wanted to be like them. They seemed to have everything I wanted: friends, parties, girlfriends. I had zero sense of self and didn't care to. I just wanted to be seen a certain way, thinking it would make me happy. It didn't, and most of those kids were dickheads.
Fast forward to today. As adults, we care way too much about what others think of us. We ask others if they like our hair or what we're wearing. We alter our default behavior to please others, often at the expense of our own personal interests and beliefs. We compare our achievements to others' achievements. "Oh, Dave down the street got a boat! He's really made it." We avoid conflict because of our fear of disapproval. We constantly search for feedback from peers and bosses to reassure us. We make social media posts for likes, comments, or shares and use this to measure our own self-worth. When I make a blog post and it doesn't get likes I feel discouraged. It's exhausting. But you know what? Fuck that! Fuck likes, this isn't for you, this is for me.
So what did I learn from all of this? How do you stop seeking validation from others? You have to realize that what other people think doesn’t matter. If anything, trying to imitate others actually has the reverse effect. People pick up on whether or not you’re being authentic, and when others see that you're being true to yourself, other like-minded people will flock to you. You should dress in what you like and what you think is cool. It’s not about wearing and doing what everyone else is doing. It’s about you and what you are into.
The other thing I learned? Emo isn’t just a phase, mom!