from Michael Alcee’s NETMCDO presentation, ’19
“Validate yourself.” Whenever I heard this phrase I’d think, yeah, right: easier said than done. I mean, how do you validate yourself when you really aren’t sure if you’re “good enough” to do so? But over the past few weeks I feel like I may have cracked the code on this. If you, too, ever find yourself craving external validation, this one’s for you: how to validate yourself.
For context, if you’re like most musicians, you swing between the two extremes in the Venn diagram above, never landing in the sweet spot. To compensate for our vacillating self-esteem, we seek external validation. We crave approval and praise from others to help us stay motivated and to try to hold on to a sense that we—and our work—are of value.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a long history of struggling to get past the need for external validation. And it always seems like just when I think I’ve kicked the habit, life throws me a curve ball.
Here’s the latest example: I write a column for a quarterly magazine and after the most recent piece I submitted to my editor, I got an email back from him. It included a comment that the piece was “beautifully written.”
I know, that’s a nice piece of external validation, right? Except that . . .
His comment sent me into shock
I’d been writing for the publication for five years and I’d never gotten anything like this from the editor.
We’d always emailed back and forth about deadlines, story ideas, and specific edits. He seemed at least tacitly pleased with my work so I figured everything was OK.
I wasn’t expecting praise. So receiving it threw me into a tailspin.
It made me worry about all my previous pieces not being praise-worthy. And this triggered my old dependencies on external validation.
Not knowing what else to do, I reached out to other writers for perspective on this.
When in doubt, ask for honest feedback (not validation)
I’m a card-carrying member and enthusiastic fan of George Saunders’ Story Club (a Substack community). In it, we analyze short stories and discuss the writing and editing process with George (and we learn how to become better humans in the process). So I consulted folks there. I wanted to know what kind of feedback other freelance writers have received from their editors—and how they responded to it.
I posted about my editor’s comment and my own reaction to it and a wonderful fellow Story Club member, Rosanne Scott (a veteran freelance newspaper journalist) responded with her own experience. Here’s a bit from our exchange (reproduced with Rosanne’s consent):
RS: “I had an editor who for ten years never said a peep about my copy. Never a word. He’d call me up now and then and threaten to take me to lunch but never did.
Then he died.
It was from his replacement that I learned how much my editor had counted on me delivering decent copy—and on time.
But that wasn’t the point, as I finally figured out.”
AB: “Your story, Rosanne, about having to wait 10 years—and until an editor dies—to feel acknowledged: WOW!
This makes me wonder how much real feedback ANYONE ever gets. It’s like we’re all working in isolation wondering if we’ve got the tiger by the tail or not.”
(Who’s in charge of validation anyway?)
In response, Rosanne wrote back to me . . .
RS: “See, that’s just it: I don’t think we can wait for acknowledgment, which may or may not come, and, if it doesn’t, does it matter?
I think what I finally, finally, finally understood, what my poor dead editor finally got through to me was it only mattered if I’d done my best as I knew best to be at that time and under the circumstances. Imperfect, that he could deal with and fix, which he sure did.
Acknowledgment wasn’t his department! That was all mine.”
Oh, these “tough love” comments were SO helpful to me—THANK YOU, ROSANNE!
She got me to remember that before my editor’s comment I hadn’t expected (or craved) external validation from him. But receiving that comment triggered all of my old seeking of approval. I used to (not so secretly) want someone who would turn me into a “real” writer. I sought out editors / teachers / father-figures to get their blessings on my work.
What I love about Rosanne’s approach is her clarity: An editor’s job doesn’t include holding your hand. That expectation isn’t appropriate. Rosanne reminded me that being an adult means we need to validate ourselves.
Any of this Sound Familiar?
This doesn’t just apply to writers and editors, of course. As musicians, all of our early years are focused on gaining approval and validation from parents and teachers.
And that habit of seeking external validation continues as we seek the approval of audition committees, audiences, and critics.
The thing is, that habit of seeking external validation eventually gets in the way of our being able to find our OWN voices as artists.
Let’s face it, most musicians and writers have fragile egos. In our creative work, we’re often afraid that we’re not measuring up to our capabilities and that we’ll never reach our true potential. Most of us are victims of our own ruthless perfectionism, imposter syndrome, and negative self-talk.
Of course, we all need constructive feedback and a reality check from time to time. But in the end, we must take full responsibility for our own work, for our own emotional states, and for our own validation.
I always knew that I needed to self-validate but never had a clue about how to do this in a way that didn’t feel arrogant or delusional.
As a grad student, when I studied cello in Paris, my teacher told me I needed to walk onstage telling myself, “Je suis le meilleur.” But this never worked for me. Any sort of comparing myself to others was a disaster and trying to convince myself that I was the best—well, my inner critic just laughed her ass off at that idea!
Author Steven Pressfield recommends validating ourselves by giving ourselves needed pep talks. I do this, but my Resistance always comes flooding back in.
So I’m excited to share with you this terrific exercise I came across this week. It’s made a big impact on me and I hope it does the same for you . . .
How to Validate Yourself
This comes from Sharon Blackie’s excellent Hagitude course. In it, author Tanya Shadrick posted this exercise as one of her “Growing our creative confidence” email prompts.
Tanya explained that years ago she’d taken a class in counseling in a continuing education college program. The teacher (whose name wasn’t provided, otherwise I’d love to credit them here) offered this exercise:
“Describe yourself—in no more than 500 words—using the third person . . .
There are two important conditions to work with when doing so:
- Write from the perspective of someone who knows you deeply—or perhaps a group of people: from either your past or present. (If you truly can’t summon any one of this kind: use a place, an animal, even your older future self.)
- And most importantly: while they know your fears, your failures, your faults, they are only here to speak of your qualities and your great potential. They are recommending you wholeheartedly and without reservation.
And what they are writing is your soul’s reference—an identity paper you can carry with you in your onward journey (even as your identity will be changing).”
Writing Your Soul’s Reference
You may ask, as Tanya’s classmates did of the instructor:
- “What if no one knows me that well?
- I’ve never received any kind of praise or support—written or spoken.
- If you asked me to describe myself in a critical way—easy! This? Impossible.
- This feels like praising myself: that’s just not done in my family.”
In response, Tanya wrote “Our tutor smiled in her quiet, wry way. She said gently:
‘If you’ve never received such vocal kindness or support, this is an opportunity to spend time imagining—or admitting—what words would give you courage for your life journey. Perhaps you can have that encouragement be said by the people in your current life or your past. Or have them come from the sort of teacher or mentor you’ve yearned for. And if you can’t even imagine this kind of support in a private exercise, shared with no one, how can you ever hear or be nourished by any support that does come your way?’”
Do this exercise as a gift to yourself
Yes, it’s hard. It’s humbling. And it’s an amazing experience to look deep inside and come clean about what you know to be true, to be worthy, and of value in yourself.
I found in doing this exercise that I wrote about who I am rather than what I’ve done. And I found this more grounding and more helpful than any praise I’ve ever been given. (After all, it’s easy to crave external validation and then when we get it, to doubt the sincerity or judgment of the person giving it.)
Self-validation begins with radical self-assessment—daring to be honest about what and who we really are—and owning up to what we are actually capable of becoming.
If we can dare to write our soul’s reference truthfully, we can find the self-validation we most need.
Validating yourself is about finding the sweet spot in the Venn diagram—the place where we can find the flow state and be free from the prison of our own egos.
FYI: If you’d like to explore getting expert coaching to bring more of your best work into the world—let’s talk.
Here’s to writing your truth,
Dream Big, Plan Smart, Live Well
