63. How High-Achieving Women Can Build Internal Safety Through Self-Validation
External validation creates a constant hamster wheel where you're putting your self-worth and safety on the line for other people.
Self-validation, on the other hand, is about learning to have your own back, especially when tough criticism comes your way or when others are disaffirming you. It's a simple skill that helps you feel less stressed, trust yourself, walk into any room and feel like you belong, and exude confidence in the toughest circumstances.
Join me this week as I share why ambitious women need to master self-validation to break free from this exhausting cycle and lead on their own terms. You'll discover how this foundational skill fits into my self-empowered leadership formula and creates the internal safety you need to make powerful choices. By the end of this episode, you'll understand how building internal safety enables you to make conscious choices that move you expansively toward what you want.
Command is my six-month leadership accelerator and mastermind for women who are ready to show up with clarity, composure, and unapologetic authority. Click here to book a consultation with me to figure out if it’s the right next step for you.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why seeking external validation puts control of your self-worth in other people's hands.
How internal safety enables you to make powerful choices instead of survival-based decisions.
What common barriers like imposter syndrome and perfectionism are really protecting you from.
How to intercept negative self-talk and practice validating yourself in real-time.
Why recovery speed matters more than avoiding mistakes in leadership.
Practical techniques for building self-validation.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Episodes Related to building internal safety:
39. Being Brilliant Isn’t Enough: How Women Leaders Finally Get Heard
43. Quiet Confidence: The Daily Ritual That Makes You Unshakable
Full Episode Transcript:
Are you tired of seeking external validation only to end up feeling drained and unfulfilled? It's time to break the cycle. In today's episode, we're talking about self-validation, a game-changing tool for ambitious women ready to lead on their own terms. We'll uncover the common barriers to self-validation and share actionable techniques that will help you cultivate confidence from the inside out. Let's dive in.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey, podcast listeners. Welcome to today's episode. I'm actually going to be sharing an episode that I recorded way back when we started The Balanced Leader about a year ago. This is Episode 3: The Power of Self-Validation: Building Internal Safety.
Now, you've probably heard me talk a lot about internal safety in the episodes that you've listened to. But if you're new to the show, it is part of my coaching philosophy and how I coach women leaders, especially in male-dominated spaces, learn to create safety within themselves, within their bodies, within their minds. And it is actually a big part of the self-empowered leadership formula that you're going to hear more and more about, especially going into next year. I'm going to be sharing a lot more of my frameworks because this way you will understand the strategies that I'm teaching and how they fit within the greater framework.
So internal safety is one of the things that enables us to make powerful choices. When we feel safe in our bodies, when we feel abundant, when we feel grounded in ourselves, we are more likely to take calculated risk than when we feel unsafe, when we feel really scared, when our bodies are dysregulated in terms of our emotional regulation, and when our minds are offering us a lot of doom and gloom thoughts. We're more in a survival state. When we are in that survival state, we are more likely to make a choice that we've made in the past, that we've done before, that feels familiar to us. So it's really hard to expand and to move beyond what we know in the here and now when we are using old thought patterns and old emotional patterns that have us staying stuck, right?
So when we build internal safety, and I'm going to talk all about it in this episode, we actually enable ourselves to calm down and actually use that expansive part of our brain, that part of our brain that is ready for its next level, is ready to take on the discomfort of making a choice, but a choice that is one where you're going to grow and learn from.
So I'm going to give you the self-empowered leadership formula because what you'll notice as you listen to more of the podcast is that these are all strategies that fit within the self-empowered leadership formula. So the formula starts with this. First, it's about context and curiosity, really understanding where you are and what the thought patterns you have and even what the conditioning you might have is, right? You're going to hear me talk even more about that. But that is that first level, really slowing down and pausing and understanding what is happening here, both from an intellectual, emotional standpoint and also an external standpoint.
And then there's choice. That's the second step of the self-empowered leadership formula, making a choice. But like I said, internal safety is going to enable you to make a choice that is going to move you forward to what the third formula is, is commitment, right? The commitment to being that next level you, that commitment of expansion, that commitment of becoming who you always desired to become.
So those are the three steps: context and curiosity, number one; number two, choice; and number three, commitment. And internal safety is really one of those bridging points that have us moving from the context and curiosity to choice, making a really empowered choice. We can make better choices when we feel safe in our bodies, when we are able to discern the difference between real fear and imagined fear. And like you've probably heard me say before in this podcast, when emotions are high, critical thinking is low.
So we want to be able to ground ourselves, not suppress our emotions, but be with our emotions in a way where we are like helping ourselves process the emotion before we make any quick, swift decisions, before we decide not to move forward with something, before we decide to go the safe option. We want to learn to intercept ourselves and interrupt ourselves to be able to create that internal safety so that we make a choice that is more conscious in nature and that has us moving more expansively towards what we want.
So I wanted to give you that context before you dive into this episode because this will really ground what the framework is and why it's so important. So enjoy this episode, The Power of Self-Validation: Building Internal Safety. This is so important to the foundation of yourself as you make new discerning choices for you, to expand, to be heard in rooms full of men, to be powerful in places that you never thought you would feel powerful in.
All right, go and have fun and let me know how this episode lands with you. I'd love to hear from you. All right, take good care. Bye.
—
This week's podcast is on the power of self-validation and how you can use it to build internal safety for yourself. I'm going to dive into the importance of this skill as it is crucial for effective leadership, and I'm going to share with you what it is, how it can impact your leadership style, what the common barriers are to self-validation, and techniques to start building it for yourself.
But I want you to take a moment and think about having a skill that could help you feel less stressed, feel more in control, trust yourself and your ability, walk into any room and feel like you belong, own your career narrative, exude confidence, clarity, and composure in the toughest circumstances, channel energy, inspire others, have your own back no matter what, slow down time, and strategically show up for your life.
The skill is simple, but it's not always easy to implement, and it's the skill of really learning how to validate yourself and create internal safety for yourself. So let's dive into what this exactly means, but I wanted to make sure people understood the value of this skill as we dive in.
Most people are often chasing after external validation. So that could look like getting a bigger job title, making more money, waiting for the CEO to compliment you before taking more action, waiting for your parents to say that they're proud of you for doing some sort of action. And this act of looking for external validation to feel safe or to feel worthy actually creates a constant hamster wheel for ourselves. We're putting our self-worth and safety on the line for other people, right? We're putting the responsibility on other people to make us feel safe and validated and worthy. And that is a lot of control that you give to people externally to you if you notice that you have a pattern of looking externally for validation, right?
And I want to explain that it feels good and normal to be looking for external validation because as children, right, if we go back to our developmental model, our parents are really who taught us and showed us how we are safe, right? They're either telling us, no, that's not safe, or yes, you're doing a good job, we're safe here together, let's play. So it makes sense that you as a person are looking a lot outside of yourself. And we live in a very patriarchal society, very masculine society that is very goal-oriented, and there's a lot of pressure on achievements, and there's almost like a task list for people in adulthood to check off to be “successful,” right?
So I want to normalize that people looking for external validation is very normal. Our society is set up this way. The economy runs on people trying to validate themselves externally to other people with brand name goods and nice clothes and having the nicest car. All of these things are about external validation. We are focused on how people think about us and see us. And again, this focus on external validation leaves a lot of control of how we feel and think about ourselves in the hands of other people. If we are able to calm ourselves down by validating ourselves and not waiting for somebody else to do that, it can actually help our nervous system calm down, which in entail improves our emotional regulation.
So if something does happen, somebody does say something to you, maybe they judge you, maybe they don't like your decision, if you are able to validate yourself and take care of yourself emotionally in those moments, then you will be able to calm down yourself and actually use more critical, creative thinking because you will be less emotionally triggered. You'll also have a greater authenticity in your leadership style because you are more clear on who you are and you're not looking for acceptance from outside of yourself. So leaders that are really good at self-validation oftentimes are open to saying the thing that other people might be afraid of saying. They might be open to telling the truth or asking the question or being curious.
I know this sounds simple, like a really simple thing to do, to give yourself validation, but there are some major barriers in the way. The common barriers to self-validation are really imposter syndrome, our own doubting of ourselves, perfectionism, potentially unrealistic expectations that we have of ourselves, past experiences, and negative self-talk. These are all barriers to the ability to self-validate and create that internal trust in ourselves.
And really, it seems like a way that we protect ourselves, right? Often times our minds go to the darkest places, the most judgmental places because there's a thought that if we judge ourselves harshly, and if we are really tough on ourselves, it almost creates an armor for us that no matter what other people say, we are going to be meaner and harsher to ourselves, so we will have already experienced the most terrible thing. But the reality is it actually keeps us from doing things. It keeps us from taking risks, signing up for a promotion, raising our hand for that next thing because behind imposter syndrome, self-doubt, perfectionism, what's behind that is actually fear of what somebody might say about us, how we might feel about ourselves, how we might judge ourselves, and all of that is really protecting us from stepping out and doing something. It feels protective, but it's actually really limiting. It limits our ability to feel safe within ourselves. It limits our ability to go and take risks and make mistakes and figure it out and clean it up.
So instead of focusing on how to move forward, validating ourselves, giving ourselves permission to speak up, to think that we are worthy, to believe that, sticking with the imposter syndrome and self-doubt is like shrinking ourselves down, making ourselves really small. And it's using our survival brain to look and analyze our life and our career decisions. And when we do that, we are really focused on creating safety for ourselves. It looks like safety, but it's really a limiting life.
I oftentimes talk to my clients that there is a tradeoff for safety versus satisfaction. If you want safety, if you are allowing your survival brain to make most of your decisions, and when I say safety, it really means not making changes or allowing yourself to be uncomfortable and try out new things. If you focus on that versus satisfaction, satisfaction is really about going out there, doing things, testing things out, learning about ourselves. And this self-validation can help you to have your own back. And that is actually what creates true safety for ourselves: learning how to have our own back, especially when the tough criticism comes our way, especially when other people are disaffirming us. And learning how to do this, intercepting ourselves and that negativity, that's what's really going to build true internal safety. That's the part of you that's actually going to want to go out into the world, take risks, do more things when you are trusting your ability to figure it out versus staying safe and not rocking the boat, right? Staying safe and not rocking the boat over time becomes boring for people, and it also becomes really limiting, and people become paralyzed in this inaction and this slow momentum in their life because they are focused on external validation and really internal judgment of themselves, which does not create safety or expansion for anyone.
So if this sounds like you, if you are wanting to build the skill of self-validation, but these barriers are in the way, some things that can help you get started is firstly, noticing your self-talk, whether it's negative or positive or neutral. You want to start noticing how are you talking to yourself? What are you saying to yourself? And oftentimes, people when they start tracking this, they say to themselves, so I want to normalize it for you. They're like, "I would never say this to my friend. I would never treat anybody the way that I treat myself." And this should be eye-opening, and it is sad, and it may be stirring emotionally for you, but this is where change starts. It starts with recognizing what's so right now and practicing the more positive self-talk. But we can't just jump right away there. We need to start understanding ourselves and seeing how are we looking at the world? How are we judging ourselves? And when we know sort of what our baseline is, we can start moving ourselves slowly to feeling more comfortable about having more acceptance for ourselves and being able to start having more positive things to say about ourselves.
And it's not just saying it. This is where some people are like, affirmations don't work at all. I agree. Affirmations, if you're just reading words and you're not feeling it in your body and you're not connected to the emotions, it's not going to help you, right? It's just you saying the things. So I like to start with a lot of my clients before we even get to that positive, affectionate self-talk, to notice how they are talking to themselves. Awareness is the very first step. And once you can be aware of yourself, then you could start accepting the way you're talking to yourself. Not just accepting it that this is just how it is, but accepting it as, wow, this is a defense mechanism that I've created for myself or a motivation I've created for myself to be mean to myself in order to push myself to get to that next level, right? Like this is something that you're just noticing as a habit and as a pattern and not intrinsically part of you, right? So you want to notice, wow, this is how I treat myself. This is how I talk to myself. This isn't helpful, right? Maybe it helps me jump start and it's helped me in the past be motivated, but over time it feels exhausting and it starts becoming part of who we think we are versus a pattern that we have the ability to change and to shift. But it starts with awareness.
And it also starts with recognizing and celebrating achievements by understanding that this is a good thing. A lot of times people feel scared of actually recognizing what they're great at, and it's because again, they're worried that people are going to have really high expectations of them or they're concerned that they're not going to live up to the thing that they did, and they're worried that they're going to disappoint other people. Again, really focused on external validation that doesn't create safety for us, and it really puts our career trajectory in the hands of other people because we are really focused on pleasing people versus showing up as leaders for ourselves.
The next thing you want to do is develop a growth mindset. You want to be somebody who knows that growth is possible. It's not a fixed thing. Just because you are feeling a certain way about yourself or thinking certain thoughts about yourself in this moment in time doesn't mean that you will always be doing that. It actually takes practice, mindfulness, self-compassion, and again, that awareness piece to be able to shift. And it is possible, but it is something that takes dedication. And this is something I work with my clients on a lot. They may start validating themselves, but something bad happens and then it triggers them to go into old patterns of self-beatup, perfectionism. They go to drama or all-or-nothing thinking and everything feels super heavy, right? It's almost like our brains are going back and reverting to that fixed mindset in order to protect ourselves, but we're really not protecting ourselves.
So it does take building a growth mindset, understanding that even though you may have negative thoughts about yourself right now, maybe you are really harsh and judgmental to yourself, knowing that if you are aware of it and that you're dedicated to that, that you can have a different way of being with yourself. But it's going to take time. It is like a relationship. Imagine having a relationship with someone where you have been mean and judgmental to them for a very long time. So it's not going to happen overnight, right? You may not trust yourself to be kind to yourself all the time, but it does start with being aware, being conscious, giving yourself compassion, noticing yourself, and even sharing it with people. I actually remember when I started dating my now husband, I remember something crazy happened at work and I got a harsh email from my boss. And not only did I get a harsh email from my boss, I started being super harsh to myself and super mean to myself. And instead of just saying it to myself, I said it out loud where he could hear me.
And by me saying it out loud, the judgments I had about myself, how I thought I was a terrible finance leader, and just being really mean to myself, it almost awakened me to how powerful this voice is, particularly when we're under stress, particularly when we have a dynamic where a authority figure is unhappy with us, right? We start noticing that. And so that was really one of the eye-opening moments for me to notice, wow, this voice is super powerful, particularly during these times, and I can actually take responsibility for that voice and shift it over time by choosing to, even if I make a mistake, validate myself, take care of myself. It doesn't mean that I am giving myself a pass. I can still hold myself accountable to making a mistake and improving without being mean to myself, without berating myself, without feeling like this mistake had something to do with my sense of worthiness as a human being.
So I want to share that because I think sometimes it's hard for people to discern, right? People are like, "Well, I am a good person and this is just work." But when you are in it and it's a work thing, you feel like it's all-encompassing and you can't make the changes and it feels so real. And it brings back a lot of emotions, particularly if you were really harsh to yourself as a child as well, and it brings back a lot of these old patterns. So I do want to tell people it's really important to know that if you're on the journey of learning the power of self-validation, that it is a journey and it is a practice. It's something that you, number one, need to be aware of, what's happening. Number two, make conscious choices of how you want to speak to yourself. And what happens over time is those voices of judgment will turn more into voices of increasingly more self-affection, increasingly more acceptance, and that voice will be kinder, and that voice will feel more like it is there for you versus working against you.
So let's dive into some real-time leadership challenges. And I'm going to share with you some things that my clients have used that have really helped them to be able to validate themselves and how that has transformed how they're showing up at work.
So one of my clients actually was sharing how she was delivering a very important presentation to a divisional CEO, so her boss's boss. And she noticed that there was a mistake. He noticed it as well, and he got very upset about it. And she noticed in those moments, she actually noticed herself almost getting really upset with herself. So she noticed, number one, I made a mistake. Number two, I'm going to self-judgment, and she could feel herself almost shrinking down. But she had been doing this work for a while, and so instead of choosing to do the normal path that she'd do where she would feel bad, sink down, her energy level would be low, she consciously decided that she's okay. She was able to validate herself in the moment that she's okay. This was a mistake. You're going to be fine. And that little single thought helped her shift from shrinking down and wanting to finish quickly through her presentation to slowing down and taking responsibility for the mistake and saying, "I apologize, I will fix this." And then moving forward, head up high, very clear, very methodical, emotionally regulated, moving forward with purpose and impact and not sort of bowing down in shame or wanting to run away. Her energy even after being told something was wrong and being disaffirmed in front of her boss and other colleagues, she was able to regain her composure. And that is a really powerful tool.
That ability to intercept yourself and to take care of yourself and get back to being super professional, on purpose and impactful is a very important tool to create internal safety for ourselves and to show up as authentic leaders, right? If we have this skill, then we're not as scared of making mistakes. We can take ownership and we can move forward.
So I want you to take a moment and think about for yourself a time when you got some negative feedback, maybe it was in a presentation. And what you did, reflect on how you spoke to yourself, reflect on your energy. And then think about what it might look like to have validated yourself in those moments versus depend on that external validation to be okay. This is a really powerful tool.
I'll share one last example. I was coaching a client who was having a really tough time with her CEO, and she knew that it was probably inevitable that her role was going to be eliminated. And so she was really working on validating herself and taking care of herself no matter what happens. And so when she did get that call and the CEO did tell her your role is being, you know, eliminated, and X, Y, and Z, she was able to be really calm and collected and confident. She asked him specific questions. She was able to engage with him in a way that she hadn't been before. She was able to validate herself in those moments. She was able to feel strong and powerful, even though her job was being eliminated. This is super powerful in terms of having a tool and having a skill that allows you to show up with energy, to show up with purpose, to show up on your own side, having your own back no matter what.
I want you to imagine for yourself what it would feel like and look like for you to have this skill in your life. And start practicing daily reflections on how you're talking to yourself and how you are validating yourself. Create a wins list to review regularly, right? You want to have, I think one of my clients, they call it their success files, right? You want to have a file of things where you're getting compliments, where you are being praised, but then also where you're giving it to yourself. You could even try starting to have positive pep talks with yourself. It sounds cheesy, but it is a powerful tool that you could start using to create this self-validation. Having this skill is going to support you as you continue accelerating as a leader, taking on more responsibility, managing more people, probably making bigger mistakes, getting into more messy areas, right? But the ability to validate yourself is really about recovery speed. The quickness to which you bounce back is super related to this power of self-validation.
And I want to hear from you. I'd love to know how this is shaping how you are showing up, how you feel about yourself, what your internal cha-cha is, and how you're shifting it. So feel free to share with me over email or in social media.
Until next time, continue leading with confidence and purpose.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey, podcast listeners. Welcome to today's episode. I'm actually going to be sharing an episode that I recorded way back when we started The Balanced Leader about a year ago. This is Episode 3: The Power of Self-Validation: Building Internal Safety.
Now, you've probably heard me talk a lot about internal safety in the episodes that you've listened to. But if you're new to the show, it is part of my coaching philosophy and how I coach women leaders, especially in male-dominated spaces, learn to create safety within themselves, within their bodies, within their minds. And it is actually a big part of the self-empowered leadership formula that you're going to hear more and more about, especially going into next year. I'm going to be sharing a lot more of my frameworks because this way you will understand the strategies that I'm teaching and how they fit within the greater framework.
So internal safety is one of the things that enables us to make powerful choices. When we feel safe in our bodies, when we feel abundant, when we feel grounded in ourselves, we are more likely to take calculated risk than when we feel unsafe, when we feel really scared, when our bodies are dysregulated in terms of our emotional regulation, and when our minds are offering us a lot of doom and gloom thoughts. We're more in a survival state. When we are in that survival state, we are more likely to make a choice that we've made in the past, that we've done before, that feels familiar to us. So it's really hard to expand and to move beyond what we know in the here and now when we are using old thought patterns and old emotional patterns that have us staying stuck, right?
So when we build internal safety, and I'm going to talk all about it in this episode, we actually enable ourselves to calm down and actually use that expansive part of our brain, that part of our brain that is ready for its next level, is ready to take on the discomfort of making a choice, but a choice that is one where you're going to grow and learn from.
So I'm going to give you the self-empowered leadership formula because what you'll notice as you listen to more of the podcast is that these are all strategies that fit within the self-empowered leadership formula. So the formula starts with this. First, it's about context and curiosity, really understanding where you are and what the thought patterns you have and even what the conditioning you might have is, right? You're going to hear me talk even more about that. But that is that first level, really slowing down and pausing and understanding what is happening here, both from an intellectual, emotional standpoint and also an external standpoint.
And then there's choice. That's the second step of the self-empowered leadership formula, making a choice. But like I said, internal safety is going to enable you to make a choice that is going to move you forward to what the third formula is, is commitment, right? The commitment to being that next level you, that commitment of expansion, that commitment of becoming who you always desired to become.
So those are the three steps: context and curiosity, number one; number two, choice; and number three, commitment. And internal safety is really one of those bridging points that have us moving from the context and curiosity to choice, making a really empowered choice. We can make better choices when we feel safe in our bodies, when we are able to discern the difference between real fear and imagined fear. And like you've probably heard me say before in this podcast, when emotions are high, critical thinking is low.
So we want to be able to ground ourselves, not suppress our emotions, but be with our emotions in a way where we are like helping ourselves process the emotion before we make any quick, swift decisions, before we decide not to move forward with something, before we decide to go the safe option. We want to learn to intercept ourselves and interrupt ourselves to be able to create that internal safety so that we make a choice that is more conscious in nature and that has us moving more expansively towards what we want.
So I wanted to give you that context before you dive into this episode because this will really ground what the framework is and why it's so important. So enjoy this episode, The Power of Self-Validation: Building Internal Safety. This is so important to the foundation of yourself as you make new discerning choices for you, to expand, to be heard in rooms full of men, to be powerful in places that you never thought you would feel powerful in.
All right, go and have fun and let me know how this episode lands with you. I'd love to hear from you. All right, take good care. Bye.
—
This week's podcast is on the power of self-validation and how you can use it to build internal safety for yourself. I'm going to dive into the importance of this skill as it is crucial for effective leadership, and I'm going to share with you what it is, how it can impact your leadership style, what the common barriers are to self-validation, and techniques to start building it for yourself.
But I want you to take a moment and think about having a skill that could help you feel less stressed, feel more in control, trust yourself and your ability, walk into any room and feel like you belong, own your career narrative, exude confidence, clarity, and composure in the toughest circumstances, channel energy, inspire others, have your own back no matter what, slow down time, and strategically show up for your life.
The skill is simple, but it's not always easy to implement, and it's the skill of really learning how to validate yourself and create internal safety for yourself. So let's dive into what this exactly means, but I wanted to make sure people understood the value of this skill as we dive in.
Most people are often chasing after external validation. So that could look like getting a bigger job title, making more money, waiting for the CEO to compliment you before taking more action, waiting for your parents to say that they're proud of you for doing some sort of action. And this act of looking for external validation to feel safe or to feel worthy actually creates a constant hamster wheel for ourselves. We're putting our self-worth and safety on the line for other people, right? We're putting the responsibility on other people to make us feel safe and validated and worthy. And that is a lot of control that you give to people externally to you if you notice that you have a pattern of looking externally for validation, right?
And I want to explain that it feels good and normal to be looking for external validation because as children, right, if we go back to our developmental model, our parents are really who taught us and showed us how we are safe, right? They're either telling us, no, that's not safe, or yes, you're doing a good job, we're safe here together, let's play. So it makes sense that you as a person are looking a lot outside of yourself. And we live in a very patriarchal society, very masculine society that is very goal-oriented, and there's a lot of pressure on achievements, and there's almost like a task list for people in adulthood to check off to be “successful,” right?
So I want to normalize that people looking for external validation is very normal. Our society is set up this way. The economy runs on people trying to validate themselves externally to other people with brand name goods and nice clothes and having the nicest car. All of these things are about external validation. We are focused on how people think about us and see us. And again, this focus on external validation leaves a lot of control of how we feel and think about ourselves in the hands of other people. If we are able to calm ourselves down by validating ourselves and not waiting for somebody else to do that, it can actually help our nervous system calm down, which in entail improves our emotional regulation.
So if something does happen, somebody does say something to you, maybe they judge you, maybe they don't like your decision, if you are able to validate yourself and take care of yourself emotionally in those moments, then you will be able to calm down yourself and actually use more critical, creative thinking because you will be less emotionally triggered. You'll also have a greater authenticity in your leadership style because you are more clear on who you are and you're not looking for acceptance from outside of yourself. So leaders that are really good at self-validation oftentimes are open to saying the thing that other people might be afraid of saying. They might be open to telling the truth or asking the question or being curious.
I know this sounds simple, like a really simple thing to do, to give yourself validation, but there are some major barriers in the way. The common barriers to self-validation are really imposter syndrome, our own doubting of ourselves, perfectionism, potentially unrealistic expectations that we have of ourselves, past experiences, and negative self-talk. These are all barriers to the ability to self-validate and create that internal trust in ourselves.
And really, it seems like a way that we protect ourselves, right? Often times our minds go to the darkest places, the most judgmental places because there's a thought that if we judge ourselves harshly, and if we are really tough on ourselves, it almost creates an armor for us that no matter what other people say, we are going to be meaner and harsher to ourselves, so we will have already experienced the most terrible thing. But the reality is it actually keeps us from doing things. It keeps us from taking risks, signing up for a promotion, raising our hand for that next thing because behind imposter syndrome, self-doubt, perfectionism, what's behind that is actually fear of what somebody might say about us, how we might feel about ourselves, how we might judge ourselves, and all of that is really protecting us from stepping out and doing something. It feels protective, but it's actually really limiting. It limits our ability to feel safe within ourselves. It limits our ability to go and take risks and make mistakes and figure it out and clean it up.
So instead of focusing on how to move forward, validating ourselves, giving ourselves permission to speak up, to think that we are worthy, to believe that, sticking with the imposter syndrome and self-doubt is like shrinking ourselves down, making ourselves really small. And it's using our survival brain to look and analyze our life and our career decisions. And when we do that, we are really focused on creating safety for ourselves. It looks like safety, but it's really a limiting life.
I oftentimes talk to my clients that there is a tradeoff for safety versus satisfaction. If you want safety, if you are allowing your survival brain to make most of your decisions, and when I say safety, it really means not making changes or allowing yourself to be uncomfortable and try out new things. If you focus on that versus satisfaction, satisfaction is really about going out there, doing things, testing things out, learning about ourselves. And this self-validation can help you to have your own back. And that is actually what creates true safety for ourselves: learning how to have our own back, especially when the tough criticism comes our way, especially when other people are disaffirming us. And learning how to do this, intercepting ourselves and that negativity, that's what's really going to build true internal safety. That's the part of you that's actually going to want to go out into the world, take risks, do more things when you are trusting your ability to figure it out versus staying safe and not rocking the boat, right? Staying safe and not rocking the boat over time becomes boring for people, and it also becomes really limiting, and people become paralyzed in this inaction and this slow momentum in their life because they are focused on external validation and really internal judgment of themselves, which does not create safety or expansion for anyone.
So if this sounds like you, if you are wanting to build the skill of self-validation, but these barriers are in the way, some things that can help you get started is firstly, noticing your self-talk, whether it's negative or positive or neutral. You want to start noticing how are you talking to yourself? What are you saying to yourself? And oftentimes, people when they start tracking this, they say to themselves, so I want to normalize it for you. They're like, "I would never say this to my friend. I would never treat anybody the way that I treat myself." And this should be eye-opening, and it is sad, and it may be stirring emotionally for you, but this is where change starts. It starts with recognizing what's so right now and practicing the more positive self-talk. But we can't just jump right away there. We need to start understanding ourselves and seeing how are we looking at the world? How are we judging ourselves? And when we know sort of what our baseline is, we can start moving ourselves slowly to feeling more comfortable about having more acceptance for ourselves and being able to start having more positive things to say about ourselves.
And it's not just saying it. This is where some people are like, affirmations don't work at all. I agree. Affirmations, if you're just reading words and you're not feeling it in your body and you're not connected to the emotions, it's not going to help you, right? It's just you saying the things. So I like to start with a lot of my clients before we even get to that positive, affectionate self-talk, to notice how they are talking to themselves. Awareness is the very first step. And once you can be aware of yourself, then you could start accepting the way you're talking to yourself. Not just accepting it that this is just how it is, but accepting it as, wow, this is a defense mechanism that I've created for myself or a motivation I've created for myself to be mean to myself in order to push myself to get to that next level, right? Like this is something that you're just noticing as a habit and as a pattern and not intrinsically part of you, right? So you want to notice, wow, this is how I treat myself. This is how I talk to myself. This isn't helpful, right? Maybe it helps me jump start and it's helped me in the past be motivated, but over time it feels exhausting and it starts becoming part of who we think we are versus a pattern that we have the ability to change and to shift. But it starts with awareness.
And it also starts with recognizing and celebrating achievements by understanding that this is a good thing. A lot of times people feel scared of actually recognizing what they're great at, and it's because again, they're worried that people are going to have really high expectations of them or they're concerned that they're not going to live up to the thing that they did, and they're worried that they're going to disappoint other people. Again, really focused on external validation that doesn't create safety for us, and it really puts our career trajectory in the hands of other people because we are really focused on pleasing people versus showing up as leaders for ourselves.
The next thing you want to do is develop a growth mindset. You want to be somebody who knows that growth is possible. It's not a fixed thing. Just because you are feeling a certain way about yourself or thinking certain thoughts about yourself in this moment in time doesn't mean that you will always be doing that. It actually takes practice, mindfulness, self-compassion, and again, that awareness piece to be able to shift. And it is possible, but it is something that takes dedication. And this is something I work with my clients on a lot. They may start validating themselves, but something bad happens and then it triggers them to go into old patterns of self-beatup, perfectionism. They go to drama or all-or-nothing thinking and everything feels super heavy, right? It's almost like our brains are going back and reverting to that fixed mindset in order to protect ourselves, but we're really not protecting ourselves.
So it does take building a growth mindset, understanding that even though you may have negative thoughts about yourself right now, maybe you are really harsh and judgmental to yourself, knowing that if you are aware of it and that you're dedicated to that, that you can have a different way of being with yourself. But it's going to take time. It is like a relationship. Imagine having a relationship with someone where you have been mean and judgmental to them for a very long time. So it's not going to happen overnight, right? You may not trust yourself to be kind to yourself all the time, but it does start with being aware, being conscious, giving yourself compassion, noticing yourself, and even sharing it with people. I actually remember when I started dating my now husband, I remember something crazy happened at work and I got a harsh email from my boss. And not only did I get a harsh email from my boss, I started being super harsh to myself and super mean to myself. And instead of just saying it to myself, I said it out loud where he could hear me.
And by me saying it out loud, the judgments I had about myself, how I thought I was a terrible finance leader, and just being really mean to myself, it almost awakened me to how powerful this voice is, particularly when we're under stress, particularly when we have a dynamic where a authority figure is unhappy with us, right? We start noticing that. And so that was really one of the eye-opening moments for me to notice, wow, this voice is super powerful, particularly during these times, and I can actually take responsibility for that voice and shift it over time by choosing to, even if I make a mistake, validate myself, take care of myself. It doesn't mean that I am giving myself a pass. I can still hold myself accountable to making a mistake and improving without being mean to myself, without berating myself, without feeling like this mistake had something to do with my sense of worthiness as a human being.
So I want to share that because I think sometimes it's hard for people to discern, right? People are like, "Well, I am a good person and this is just work." But when you are in it and it's a work thing, you feel like it's all-encompassing and you can't make the changes and it feels so real. And it brings back a lot of emotions, particularly if you were really harsh to yourself as a child as well, and it brings back a lot of these old patterns. So I do want to tell people it's really important to know that if you're on the journey of learning the power of self-validation, that it is a journey and it is a practice. It's something that you, number one, need to be aware of, what's happening. Number two, make conscious choices of how you want to speak to yourself. And what happens over time is those voices of judgment will turn more into voices of increasingly more self-affection, increasingly more acceptance, and that voice will be kinder, and that voice will feel more like it is there for you versus working against you.
So let's dive into some real-time leadership challenges. And I'm going to share with you some things that my clients have used that have really helped them to be able to validate themselves and how that has transformed how they're showing up at work.
So one of my clients actually was sharing how she was delivering a very important presentation to a divisional CEO, so her boss's boss. And she noticed that there was a mistake. He noticed it as well, and he got very upset about it. And she noticed in those moments, she actually noticed herself almost getting really upset with herself. So she noticed, number one, I made a mistake. Number two, I'm going to self-judgment, and she could feel herself almost shrinking down. But she had been doing this work for a while, and so instead of choosing to do the normal path that she'd do where she would feel bad, sink down, her energy level would be low, she consciously decided that she's okay. She was able to validate herself in the moment that she's okay. This was a mistake. You're going to be fine. And that little single thought helped her shift from shrinking down and wanting to finish quickly through her presentation to slowing down and taking responsibility for the mistake and saying, "I apologize, I will fix this." And then moving forward, head up high, very clear, very methodical, emotionally regulated, moving forward with purpose and impact and not sort of bowing down in shame or wanting to run away. Her energy even after being told something was wrong and being disaffirmed in front of her boss and other colleagues, she was able to regain her composure. And that is a really powerful tool.
That ability to intercept yourself and to take care of yourself and get back to being super professional, on purpose and impactful is a very important tool to create internal safety for ourselves and to show up as authentic leaders, right? If we have this skill, then we're not as scared of making mistakes. We can take ownership and we can move forward.
So I want you to take a moment and think about for yourself a time when you got some negative feedback, maybe it was in a presentation. And what you did, reflect on how you spoke to yourself, reflect on your energy. And then think about what it might look like to have validated yourself in those moments versus depend on that external validation to be okay. This is a really powerful tool.
I'll share one last example. I was coaching a client who was having a really tough time with her CEO, and she knew that it was probably inevitable that her role was going to be eliminated. And so she was really working on validating herself and taking care of herself no matter what happens. And so when she did get that call and the CEO did tell her your role is being, you know, eliminated, and X, Y, and Z, she was able to be really calm and collected and confident. She asked him specific questions. She was able to engage with him in a way that she hadn't been before. She was able to validate herself in those moments. She was able to feel strong and powerful, even though her job was being eliminated. This is super powerful in terms of having a tool and having a skill that allows you to show up with energy, to show up with purpose, to show up on your own side, having your own back no matter what.
I want you to imagine for yourself what it would feel like and look like for you to have this skill in your life. And start practicing daily reflections on how you're talking to yourself and how you are validating yourself. Create a wins list to review regularly, right? You want to have, I think one of my clients, they call it their success files, right? You want to have a file of things where you're getting compliments, where you are being praised, but then also where you're giving it to yourself. You could even try starting to have positive pep talks with yourself. It sounds cheesy, but it is a powerful tool that you could start using to create this self-validation. Having this skill is going to support you as you continue accelerating as a leader, taking on more responsibility, managing more people, probably making bigger mistakes, getting into more messy areas, right? But the ability to validate yourself is really about recovery speed. The quickness to which you bounce back is super related to this power of self-validation.
And I want to hear from you. I'd love to know how this is shaping how you are showing up, how you feel about yourself, what your internal cha-cha is, and how you're shifting it. So feel free to share with me over email or in social media.
Until next time, continue leading with confidence and purpose.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
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