3. The Power of Self-Validation: Building Internal Safety
Are you stuck in a pattern of constantly seeking external validation to feel safe and worthy? Are you putting your self-worth in the hands of others, waiting for their approval before taking action? Now is the time to start building internal safety through the power of self-validation, up-leveling your leadership in the process.
Self-validation is a crucial skill that allows you to create internal safety for yourself, regardless of external circumstances. It enables you to trust yourself, own your career narrative, and show up with confidence and composure as a leader in even the toughest situations.
Listen in today to discover the common barriers to self-validation, such as imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and negative self-talk, and learn practical techniques to start building this skill for yourself. By the end of this episode, you'll be equipped with a powerful tool to help you navigate challenges, bounce back from setbacks, and lead with authenticity and purpose.
If you haven’t already, please follow the podcast and leave a rating and review to let me know what you think. I'm creating this show just for you, so I want to know what you would like to hear about in the coming episodes. Find complete instructions here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why seeking external validation creates a constant hamster wheel and limits your potential.
How self-validation improves emotional regulation and enables critical and creative thinking.
The common barriers to self-validation, including imposter syndrome, self-doubt, and perfectionism.
How to notice your self-talk and start shifting it from negative to positive.
Real-life examples of how self-validation has the power to up-level how you deal with leadership challenges.
How to hold yourself accountable for mistakes without beating yourself up.
Practical techniques to start building internal safety through self-validation right now.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
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2. Overcome Limiting Leadership Patterns from Your Family of Origin
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.
Hello everyone, welcome. 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. This 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 tail 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?
Oftentimes, 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 risk 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 trade-off 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 backs, 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, 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. You know, 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 jumpstart 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. It 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, right? 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. You know, they may start validating themselves, but something bad happens, and then it triggers them to go into old patterns of self-beat-up, 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're 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 an 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 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? 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.
Next week's episode is on the art of saying no, learning to set boundaries without guilt. 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.
Hello everyone, welcome. 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. This 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 tail 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?
Oftentimes, 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 risk 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 trade-off 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 backs, 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, 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. You know, 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 jumpstart 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. It 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, right? 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. You know, they may start validating themselves, but something bad happens, and then it triggers them to go into old patterns of self-beat-up, 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're 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 an 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 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? 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.
Next week's episode is on the art of saying no, learning to set boundaries without guilt. 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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