Quotes About Validation

As much as we seek approval, we dread condemnation

In his book I Ain't Much, Baby—But I'm All I Got, the psychologist Jess Lair comments: "Praise is like sunlight to the warm human spirit; we cannot flower and grow without it. And yet, while most of us are only too ready to apply to others the cold wind of criticism, we are somehow reluctant to give our fellow the warm sunshine of praise.

We all have an innate, unquenchable desire to know we are valued, to know we matter. Yet affirming this in each other is among the most challenging things to do in our day and age.

many people who go insane find in insanity a feeling of importance that they were unable to achieve in the world of reality.

Nada há que eu necessite tanto como estímulos para minha vaidade".

She refers to a phenomenon of moviegoing which I have called certification. Nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighborhood, the place is not certified for him. More than likely he will live there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighborhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his very neighborhood, it becomes possible for him to live, for a time at least, as a person who is Somewhere and not Anywhere.

But what truly devastated Jobs was that he was not, after all, chosen as the Man of the Year.

What drives people to do good things is recognition.

Would you win the hearts of others, you must not seem to vie with them, but to admire them. Give them every opportunity of displaying their own qualifications, and when you have indulged their vanity, they will praise you in turn and prefer you above others . . . Such is the vanity of mankind that minding what others say is a much surer way of pleasing them than talking well ourselves."6

What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.

Self-worth cannot be verified by others. You are worthy because you say it is so. If you depend on others for your value it is other-worth.

Don't equate your self-worth with how well you do things in life. You aren't what you do. If you are what you do, then when you don't … you aren't.

Needing approval is tantamount to saying, Your view of me is more important than my own opinion of myself.

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval." — Mark Twain

lose interest in seeking approval.

That's ridiculous. Focusing on one person who doesn't like what you say makes their opinion count more than your own self-worth. Remember, what others think of you is none of your business! Self-worth comes from the belief that I have integrity, I am valuable, I am attractive, I am important. You don't have to go around saying it; instead, you have a quiet love affair with yourself. This is something you can teach your kids as well.

When approval-seeking is the guiding principle of life, it's virtually impossible to achieve a loving relationship with another human being.

don't seek praise or run from it.

I wanted so desperately to prove that I was right, even though all of my efforts were obviously self-sabotaging.

Your value does not come from what you accomplish. Your worth as a human being is not determined by whether you win or not.

A concessão de aprovação pode ser um grande manipulador. Seu valor reside nos outros, e se eles recusam dar-lhe aprovação, você não tem nada. Não tem valor. E assim a coisa vai, quanto mais lisonja lhe é necessária, mais você pode ser manipulado pelos outros.

Eliminate jealousy by recognizing it is a put-down of yourself. By comparing yourself to some other person and imagining you are loved less, you make others more important than you. You are measuring your own merit in comparison to another. Remind yourself that (1) Someone can always choose another without having it be a reflection on you, and (2) whether or not you are chosen by any significant other is not the way you validate your own self-worth.

release your need to be more anything in the eyes of others.

Knowing that you'll always get some disapproval for everything you feel, think, say or do is the way out of the tunnel of despair. Once you expect it, you won't be inclined to hurt yourself with it, and you'll simultaneously stop equating the repudiation of an idea or a feeling with the repudiation of you.