What I’m going to share with you today is extremely important toward your highest level of result.
When we have a behavior that produces a certain result and we don’t like the result, we get all out of whack because in our world we’re told differently than what the behavior actually manifests.
I call this “The Myth of External Validation.”
When I got into coaching, I realized that for any person to transform their lives, it took three simple things.
- You had to have access to the right information.
- You had to have the right guidance.
- And you had to have access to a community of support.
Let’s address information… If you’re being told that you can eat cheeseburgers at 2:00 AM with milkshakes and that’ll get you ripped abs; that’s bad intel. That’s the wrong information. You need the right information.
As for guidance, you need coaching. There are blind spots that we have where proper guidance and coaching is the only way to get you over the hump and to the result you want.
Community and support. These people are your cheerleaders. They don’t need to understand. But, they need to at least support you and say, “Yeah, you go dude. Do what you’re going to do.”
Understanding the simplicity of those things, I wanted to dive deeper into how that applies to you.
For the last several months my close friends have known that I’ve been moonlighting as a standup comic. Not only has it been fun, but it’s also allowed me to learn things in a different way that has made me a more powerful performance and mindset coach.
One of the things I’ve learned is that there are massive discrepancies in the doctrines that we teach in self-development about how to improve your life. Seeing these discrepancies has really opened my eyes to how to be a great coach and help more people.
One of the massive problems I see is our unwillingness to tell ourselves the truth. It’s an epidemic and the truth I’m referring to must be addressed.
You’ve got to be real with yourself. But, as a part of being real with yourself and telling ALL the truth is your need to acknowledge your inherent needs.
In the world of Gary Vaynerchuk, Tony Robbins, and all these other popular thought leaders, there are different noises, books, and everything in between to influence your decisions toward success. We’re made to believe that we’re supposed to just feel this purpose-driven drive inside of ourselves, and that alone is going to keep us going through the ups and the downs. As if inherently understanding your purpose is all that required to keep you on track.
That’s partly true.
What part isn’t true is to deny that we emotionally require validation of other people along the way.
Now, there’s some of you that might think, “Bryce, you’re full of shit. We don’t need anything outside of ourselves to succeed.”
To rebut that, I’d invite you to think about this from the framework of comedy.
Do you think that a comic would ever continue to be a comic if nobody ever laughed at him?
He’s on stage, he’s telling his jokes time, after time, after time. Night after night. And getting no response from the crowd; no reaction. You think that his drive and desire to be a comedian is sufficient for him to continue to put himself in a position to never receive the payoff of his efforts via the laughter of others?
Of course not.
The laughter of others is the fuel that keeps you going when you are a comedian.
So, why would that be acceptable in that scenario, but not when we apply it to our own lives?
Why would we be willing to continue going forward if we don’t have a little bit of nudge and encouragement from our community? From the people that understand us and love us?
That proverbial pat on the back is not a luxury.
It’s a need.
But because of how it can be perceived, we judge it to be unnecessary. It goes against the message that is out there that everything that you need is inside of you, you don’t need anything else outside of you.
It slaps in the face the idea that if you know your purpose and your clarity, external validation doesn’t matter.
The truth? It’s an incomplete message.
- Yes, you have to be certain of your purpose.
- Yes, you have to be clear about your drive.
- Yes, you have to be willing to go forward even when people don’t understand you and when you’re not getting the support that you need.
But, you can’t continue that way forever.
The missing piece? Validation.
It’s not a guilty thought for you to want to know that your content or work made a difference.
But yet we villainize it.
We deem it a weak thought.
Instead of looking at it as you’re weak because you can’t shake the desire for acknowledgment and taking yourself down a negative road, make the shift to acknowledge that you need that encouragement.
That will serve you more than you know.
Now, here’s where we have to be careful about this.
We can’t only be doing things for validation. That’s where it’s not right. It’s unhealthy towards the bigger picture.
You’ve got to be able to be self-motivated.
You’ve got to do it because you want to do it.
But that sliver where you need validation and you admit it?
That’s acceptable.
Like I shared in the example of a comedian, would a comic keep going up on stage over and over if he never made anybody laugh? Of course not.
To reiterate, it’s okay to need validation. But it requires a balance. We can’t get needy with our desire for validation, especially when we technically haven’t earned it. We can’t walk into a room and all of a sudden everybody’s supposed to acquiesce to you. That’s not how it works. You have to earn the right to be validated.
Through your hard work, through your intention, through your attention to detail, you earn your stripes to be validated.
Validation is a part of the human psyche. The only people that don’t ever need validation are sociopaths.
My motivation to share this is because I think too many people walk through their life asleep. Feeling like a zombie, feeling like they don’t matter. And then when they think it through, they feel guilty for the fact that they wish that they knew they made a difference to somebody.
And in the tragic event when it gets to the point where they take their own lives, we then feel guilty for not being better to them as their friends.
We wish we would have said something. But it’s too late.
So…
How about we just tackle that from both sides?
We acknowledge that we need a certain level of validation. Not a bunch of it, but there’s a certain amount where we need encouragement. We need to know that we’re making a difference, We need to know our value, We need to be reminded from an external standpoint what our value is.
And on the flip side, we make that part is as small as possible by developing our own confidence, our own intention, our own mindfulness, our own gratefulness, our own plan of inspired action.
If we come at it from both sides, you’re going to be a pretty fucking powerful person.
You’re going to make a massive impact in this world as a healthy, whole person whose needs are met and who is doing the necessary work on their own to succeed…
Our lives can be extraordinary when we practice what we preach, tell the truth about what our needs are, and then act upon them. Your next level of growth and development could be on the other side of just acknowledging your need for external validation.
P.S. When you’re ready to take your health, your wealth, and your life to the next level; my performance coaching could be exactly what you need. To find out, click HERE and schedule a Breakthrough Call.
