Are You Hooked on External Validation?

Getting good feedback, whether from a client or a peer, is a great feeling. Having your effort and skills noticed and acknowledged can put a real glow on your day (if on that day you can allow yourself to believe the compliments – imposter syndrome does love to be contrary in that way!) The problem comes if we come to rely on that external validation.

Why We Crave External Validation

A large contributing factor to imposter syndrome is that, especially in the dog world, we all care so much about what we are doing. This is particularly true for those of us committed to spreading the word on positive training methods. It’s very easy to feel the weight of all those dogs being trained using unkind methods on our shoulders. Because we care so much, doing the job well is very important to us.

How though do we judge whether we have done the job well? Does it come from external validation, others telling us how good our class/training session/behavioural consult was? A client telling us how much we’ve changed their lives with their dogs? A peer telling us impressed they are with a particular aspect of what we’re doing?

Does it instead come from inside? Us knowing in our hearts that we’ve done the best job we can, and made a real positive difference to those around us? Can we recognise and acknowledge our own abilities, talents, and skills internally?

External Validation and Imposter Syndrome

One of the defining characteristics of many cases of imposter syndrome is a difficulty to do just that, to recognise our success and value internally. The dragging, lingering sensations of fraudulence and inadequacy make recognising our own worth very hard. The reliance on external validation strengthens.

Hanging our sense of self-worth on this external validation is a double-edged sword when we suffer with imposter syndrome. We need the reviews and compliments, while at the same time we are often unable to absorb and accept them as being legitimate and deserved. Without deliberate thought, we put ourselves into a state of cognitive dissonance, believing that the positive feedback is both needed and undeserved all at the same time. It’s no wonder we can tie ourselves into all kinds of knots of thinking!

External Validation in Perspective

Receiving great reviews and comments from clients and those around us is something we should be able to enjoy. To sit back and think, ‘Yes that’s right. I did do that really well,’ without going through some mental gymnastics to remove the legitimacy of the praise. We need to teach ourselves not to shrug off compliments, or deflect them with some self-deprecating comment.

The true measure of how well we are doing should be how we feel about it, not linked to any external validation. It’s not an easy thing to teach ourselves to do, but it’s so important that we learn to accept internally the value and worth of what we do. To be able to acknowledge within ourselves our successes and achievements. To realise our own self-worth.

Tackling Imposter Syndrome's Reliance on External Validation

A way to begin to do this is to write down the things that we have done and completed. Daily, weekly, it doesn’t matter as long as we do it regularly. Alongside each of these, write (objectively!) the factors that made that completion successful. Then, once that is completed, sit back and look at the list you have written. YOU have done those things. YOU made that class/consult/visit a success. If it’s still a work in progress, focus on the progression that has taken place since previous entries. YOU made that progress possible.

It’s all you, I promise.

If you want to learn more about imposter syndrome, check out my book ‘Conquering Confidence’ or join the imposter syndrome support group. In the group, there will also be details of live workshops available in the near future, either in small groups or as individual sessions. I’m also working on a mentoring membership package, details of which to come when it’s all developed.