~ Jia Gandhi, Intern
Your phone buzzes. For a second, you hope it’s the message you’ve been waiting for. It isn’t. You put your phone down, but five minutes later, you pick it up again. You know there isn’t a new notification, yet you check anyway. Maybe you’ve posted a picture and kept going back to see how many people liked it. Maybe you’ve replayed a conversation in your head, wondering, “Did I say something wrong?” Maybe you’ve worked really hard on something but still didn’t feel good about it until someone else said, “You did a great job.” If any of this feels familiar, you’re not alone.
Whether we admit it or not, all of us look for validation. We want to feel noticed. We want to feel appreciated. We want to know that we matter. And there’s nothing wrong with that. The need for validation is part of being human. The problem begins when we stop believing ourselves and start believing only what other people think about us. Think about how often your mood changes because of someone else’s reaction. A compliment stays with you all day. A harsh comment keeps playing in your mind for weeks. One person doesn’t reply, and suddenly you’re wondering if they’re upset, if they don’t like you anymore, or if you’ve done something wrong. It’s strange, isn’t it? Sometimes, one person’s opinion has the power to change the way we see ourselves. But why? The answer often goes back much further than we think. As children, we naturally looked for approval. We smiled when someone smiled back. We proudly showed our drawings to our parents.
We waited for teachers to say, “Well done.” Appreciation made us feel loved and safe. As we grew older, the need didn’t disappear. It simply found new places to hide. Now we look for it in marks, promotions, relationships, social media, compliments, and achievements. Without realizing it, we slowly begin to believe that if people appreciate us, we have value. If they don’t, maybe we’re not enough. This is where the trap begins. Imagine carrying a mirror that doesn’t show your own reflection. Instead, it only reflects what other people think about you. One day, someone calls you intelligent, and you feel confident. The next day, someone criticizes you, and suddenly you start doubting yourself. Another person ignores your message, and now you’re questioning your entire relationship. That is what living on external validation feels like. Your confidence keeps changing because someone else is holding the mirror. Social media has made this even harder.
Today, approval comes in numbers. Likes. Followers. Views. Comments. Without noticing, we begin to treat these numbers as proof of our worth. A photo gets fewer likes than expected, and we wonder if we look bad. Someone leaves our message on “seen,” and we assume we’ve upset them. We compare our ordinary days with everyone else’s highlight reel and then wonder why we don’t feel good enough. The truth is, social media shows us moments, not complete lives. No one posts their self-doubt, their sleepless nights, or the days when they feel lost. Yet we compare our whole story with someone else’s best chapter. Many of us also seek validation because we’re afraid. Afraid of rejection. Afraid of disappointing people. Afraid of not being enough. So we start adjusting ourselves. We laugh at jokes we don’t find funny. We agree with opinions we don’t believe. We say “yes” when we desperately want to say “no.” We apologize even when we haven’t done anything wrong. Little by little, we become experts at keeping everyone happy, except ourselves. The difficult part is that validation never truly satisfies us. It works like drinking salty water. For a moment, it feels like enough. Then you need more. Another compliment. Another achievement. Another reply. Another reason to believe you’re worthy. The cycle never ends because no amount of outside approval can fill a space that needs self-acceptance. This doesn’t mean you should stop caring about what people think. Compliments feel nice. Support matters. Kind words can brighten difficult days.
The goal isn’t to stop appreciating validation. The goal is to stop depending on it. There is a big difference between enjoying someone’s approval and needing it to feel okay. One adds to your confidence. The other controls it. Real confidence begins quietly. It begins when you can be proud of yourself even if nobody notices. When you can accept a mistake without calling yourself a failure. When you can hear criticism without forgetting everything good about yourself. When you can say, “This is who I am,” without waiting for everyone to agree. That kind of confidence isn’t loud. It doesn’t need applause. It doesn’t need likes. It doesn’t need permission. At the end of the day, people will always have opinions. Some will appreciate you. Some won’t. Some will misunderstand you completely. You cannot control that. But you can decide whose voice becomes the loudest in your mind. If your answer is always someone else’s, you’ll spend your whole life chasing a finish line that keeps moving. Maybe that’s why so many of us feel tired. We’re not just carrying our own expectations. We’re carrying everyone else’s too.
So the next time you find yourself waiting for a reply, counting likes, or wondering whether you’re “good enough,” pause for a moment. Ask yourself a different question,“If nobody praised me for this, would it still matter to me?” If the answer is yes, hold on to that feeling. Because the most powerful kind of validation doesn’t come from your phone, your boss, your friends, or strangers on the internet. It comes from the quiet moment when you look at yourself and honestly believe, “I am enough, even when nobody says it first.”
