Seeking validation from others can leave you feeling stuck, unworthy, and emotionally drained. In this episode of Ask Dr. Jodi, I’m exploring why we fall into this cycle, the risks it poses to our mental health, and how to cultivate a sustainable sense of self-worth. We’ll dive into the root causes of validation-seeking behaviour, how modern culture and comparison amplify this issue, and practical ways to shift your mindset. If you’ve ever felt trapped by the need for external approval, this episode will empower you to take back control of your self-worth and confidence.
In this transformative episode, I break down the psychology behind seeking validation and share actionable strategies to reclaim your inner power. We explore:
This episode is filled with relatable insights, expert advice, and practical tips to help you overcome the validation-seeking cycle and create a life rooted in confidence and self-belief.
✔ Understand Validation-Seeking: Learn why you crave external approval and how it impacts your mental health.
✔ Break the Cycle: Discover how to stop relying on others for validation and start trusting yourself.
✔ Reclaim Your Power: Shift your focus to meaningful activities that uplift and energise you.
✔ Build Self-Worth: Use journaling and self-compassion practices to grow your confidence.
✔ Surround Yourself with Positivity: Learn how to cultivate a supportive community that lifts you up.
Thank you so much for listening to Ask Dr. Jodi! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and share it with someone who needs inspiration or help to heal!
[00:00:00] Dr. Jodi: Stop, stop. Stop seeking validation from other people. This is the thing. There are so many of you, me included, who have spent a lot of time and energy or are spending a lot of time and energy worrying about what anyone else thinks about them, what everyone else thinks about them, because that's what we're doing.
[00:00:22] Dr. Jodi: It consumes us. We're worried about how people are judging us, and if they're judging us harshly, we're worried [00:00:30] about if they think we're worthy or not. We are so consumed by what other people think of us, and this is the truth of it. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You don't actually need validation from other people.
[00:00:46] Dr. Jodi: So stop seeking validation from other people. And in this episode of Ask Dr. Jodi, we're gonna talk about why you might feel this way. , what are the risks of it and [00:01:00] how to shift that. Because this is a problem, stop seeking validation from other people because it's unsustainable. It might make you feel better for a little bit.
[00:01:13] Dr. Jodi: If someone's positive towards you, that's great, but if it doesn't last, if it goes away immediately and then you have to seek it out again, and it goes away immediately, you know, because it's over and then you need it again, and you need it again. its unsustainable [00:01:30] What's going on is that you have this inner sense of unworthiness and so you're seeking it from other people.
[00:01:38] Dr. Jodi: This validation of your worthiness, because you don't believe it yourself, and you need that constant reassurance, that's unsu sustainable. What is more sustainable is if you built trust in yourself. You were able to validate yourself. You were able to know that you're worthy just by being you [00:02:00] that will make it sustainable.
[00:02:02] Dr. Jodi: Instead of fearing vulnerability or fearing other people, or fearing fear, having fear, instead of having fear, you'll build a deep trust in yourself. So much so that you'll feel confident and believe in yourself to go after opportunities. You'll know that you could handle. If you take risks and they don't go well, you'll know that you could handle it.
[00:02:23] Dr. Jodi: You won't conclude that you're not gonna succeed because that's about having negative self-view. [00:02:30] But what you'll do is you'll know that you have a chance and you'll give it all that you have, knowing that you'll ha you have a chance, and if you don't win or you don't get that opportunity. That's just life.
[00:02:42] Dr. Jodi: Sometimes you don't get 'em all right? That's just life. But that doesn't mean you're not gonna try because you're concluding that you failed, right? So if you have a bad view of yourself, if you don't trust yourself very much, if you don't think you're very worthy, you don't try for anything because [00:03:00] what's the use?
[00:03:01] Dr. Jodi: You're just gonna lose. Why try. But if you believed in yourself and you believed in going after things and being uncomfortable to take challenges, and you went after those things, you will get some of them, maybe not every single one of them, but a larger percentage than you would if you don't even try.
[00:03:21] Dr. Jodi: Right? You get zero of the things that you don't try. So this is a consequence of constantly seeking validation from others.[00:03:30]
[00:03:32] Dr. Jodi: It sustains you feeling bad about yourself, and I'm gonna explain that a little bit more. It's unsustainable and it sustains you feeling bad about yourself because if you have to keep seeking it from other people and you don't feel worthy yourself, you're probably surrounding yourself with, or you probably are surrounded with people who don't treat you very well.
[00:03:51] Dr. Jodi: If you have a negative self-view, odds are you're surrounded by people don't care about you because we're only a relationship. If you're surrounded by [00:04:00] people who think you're amazing and you've grown up like that, surrounded by people who think you're amazing, you'll have a good solid sense of work. Not all the time.
[00:04:15] Dr. Jodi: I was just gonna say, I just was like, I know some examples of people who, everyone thinks they're amazing, but they don't like themselves very much, and that happens to, that can happen to, but there's a inner knowing that they have worth [00:04:30] at that same time. And actually for everybody, and you can see this, I'm going on, this is what happens when you're live.
[00:04:36] Dr. Jodi: You go on some tangents. We're talking about stop seeking validation from others, but I'm explaining why sometimes people feel bad about themselves, but they're still this inner sense of worth that.
[00:04:54] Dr. Jodi: They do think that they're worthy somewhere, even if they're defending themselves to themselves. You know that blame game that I always talk [00:05:00] about, and it's like when something bad happens, you're like, was that me? Did I do that? Did I cause that? Did I invite that? Did I allow that? And then you're like, Hmm, it's not fair that that happened to me.
[00:05:11] Dr. Jodi: That wasn't, they weren't very nice, or that's not fair, or that hurt, or whatever. So there's this, and then there's this conflict because we kind of fight with ourselves. It was my fault. Oh, it was their fault. It was my fault. It was their fault. And that is a whole other game of chaos that I've talked about a couple weeks ago in, um, in the [00:05:30] one on stop, the declutter your mind from Negative Thinking that episode.
[00:05:35] Dr. Jodi: So go back and watch that if you haven't seen that. But that blame game is us defending ourselves too. So yes, we have a lot of negative self blame. We're also defending ourselves, so it's there. There is this worthiness that all of us inherently have if you never defended yourself, which just happens to some people, but it's very rare.
[00:05:58] Dr. Jodi: So most of the people I'm speaking to [00:06:00] are watching these videos have defended themself, and I want you to know that that means there's some seed of self worth in there and that we could grow from there. We grow. It's not necessarily helping you to defend because you're fighting with yourself about blame, but it's a testimony to the fact that there is something worthy there, that there is some base that we could build off of and and grow your sense of self-worth because you deserve to feel [00:06:30] worthy about yourself, deserve in your pushed down.
[00:06:36] Dr. Jodi: Bully you or judge you and or hurt you or abuse you, right? Who made you feel terrible about yourself because of that consistent treatment, that negative treatment that they did. What happens is that situation sometimes passes and we pick up the torch and continue to berate herself in our head. And even if you haven't had [00:07:00] that and everyone's had some element of.
[00:07:05] Dr. Jodi: You know, we think we're the most common denominator, right? Because we think that so many people have been mean to us in our lives. Listen, people aren't mean to you 'cause they don't like you. They're mean to you because they don't like themselves. If you think about that, they're mean to you because they don't like themselves.
[00:07:27] Dr. Jodi: So you're not the most common denominator. What's really [00:07:30] happening, what's really the most common denominator is that there are tons of people who don't like themselves and, and when you don't like yourself, you judge other people or you criticize other people. We see that right now politically. There's this other ring.
[00:07:46] Dr. Jodi: There's this. Criticizing of other people or, um, making other people look dehumanized, dehumanizing other people. Because there's inherent fear and, and lack of self worth in [00:08:00] themselves. They have to put people down to feel better about themselves, to feel righteous or to feel like they're good. Uh, it's a huge problem and the reason why it's happening and the reason why it's so powerful is because.
[00:08:17] Dr. Jodi: We have so much anxiety in this culture and probably from screens, and I know you're watching me on a screen, so this screen, so this feels really ironic that I'm telling you the screens [00:08:30] have given us this message constantly that we're powerless and worthless and out of control. The commercials, the everything, the comparison culture, all of it is making us feel so bad about ourself and making us feel so vulnerable because we feel bad about ourself and we don't trust ourself.
[00:08:49] Dr. Jodi: We feel powerless, we feel worthless. We feel out of control. And the more we feel that way, the more we're grabbing on and grasping on something that makes us feel remotely [00:09:00] powerful, even if it's unsustainable and that is having an enemy. That's what's happening. So we really have to remind ourselves how powerful we actually are.
[00:09:13] Dr. Jodi: We have to find our own sustainable empowerment. And if you follow me, I will show you how to do that. . We have to get rid of anxiety by finding that sustainable empowerment that we have, that personal agency that we all have that is sustainable, but [00:09:30] also that agency has us taking action that's not only for our highest good, but it's for the highest good of everybody.
[00:09:36] Dr. Jodi: It doesn't say for me to be better, someone else has to be down. That's not what it does. That is unsustainable Pseudo. And you have to keep grabbing it. If you're trying to use that kind of power, it feels good for a moment, and then it's gone and you have to grab it again. You have to put someone down again.
[00:09:55] Dr. Jodi: You have to alienate or you have to show that somebody else is bad [00:10:00] for you to get power again. And so what I'm trying to teach is the sustainable empowerment, feeling empowered because you have agency. And because you trust yourself and you're really grounded and rooted in, and when you're grounded and rooted in, it's easy to be kind.
[00:10:22] Dr. Jodi: It's easy be to be empathic and empathetic because you care, right? Connection is important. [00:10:30] We are social beings and connecting to other people and lifting each other up and having them lift you up is so important. Okay? So the reason why we seek validation from other people is because inherently, biologically, we want to belong.
[00:10:44] Dr. Jodi: I, I always mention this, but we are social beings and in our, we don't have the claws and the teeth and the armor to live on our own. We have to live in community against the elements and against the dangerous animals that are out there. [00:11:00] That's how we evolved. We had to belong to a community. We didn't live alone.
[00:11:06] Dr. Jodi: Being alone, being kicked outta the community meant certain deaths. And so we are hardwired to want to belong, but that gets mixed up in today's day and age because we don't have that kind of danger if we are alone sometimes, and we don't have that kind of, uh, and actually we don't have that kind of, you know, those risks aren't there.
[00:11:29] Dr. Jodi: There's [00:11:30] not just one community that you could belong to. If you don't belong to this community, there's millions of others you could belong to. So you don't have to be alone. That's not the risk as it was in hunter gatherer times. You had a community and that was the community. You don't really have a lot of choices there.
[00:11:44] Dr. Jodi: But now we do so many choices. We don't wanna belong to everybody 'cause they're not like our people. Not everybody is our people. So stop seeking validation from other people because it's unsustainable, because it takes a lot of time and energy that [00:12:00] I would love you to spend doing something that lifts you up, that makes you feel good, that makes your soul sing.
[00:12:06] Dr. Jodi: Instead of that worrying energy, instead of that worrying, zapping all of your time and your energy worrying about what everyone else thinks about you, and worrying about how you could prove to people that you're worthy. Work really hard and prove that you're worthy. Are you, you people please to prove that you're worthy or you're constantly just trying to think of what [00:12:30] others would think about every action that you take a lot of time and energy, and most of it doesn't matter 'cause this is the truth.
[00:12:39] Dr. Jodi: As people aren't really thinking about you, they're in their head worrying about their own self and what other people think about them. They're not actually thinking about you. If you observe people, if you sat in a park and you watched people and you thought, okay, what does that person think about me?
[00:12:54] Dr. Jodi: You look at their face, they're not thinking about you, right? They're worrying about their own [00:13:00] agenda, what's going on in their life and what they have to do in their own inadequacies. Unfortunately, that is what they're thinking about. That's not, at least it's not about you, but it's not better. I mean, you know that they're suffering just as well.
[00:13:13] Dr. Jodi: We see people and we think. Oh, they're fine. They're, they're like, they're happy and confident it looks like that from the outside, but if you really look in their face and their eyes, you could see that they're worrying about stuff too. And take it from me, someone who, who hears people's secrets for, [00:13:30] uh, for their job.
[00:13:32] Dr. Jodi: People are really wrapped up and worrying about how adequate or worthy that they are and how other people see them. People are so consumed by it. Just like you are and, and I'm not criticizing you and saying you are. We all are like, we grew up in this Western culture and this western culture created us to worry about if we measure up and if we didn't measure up, then we're [00:14:00] inadequate and we don't belong.
[00:14:01] Dr. Jodi: And so we get really worried about being smart enough, good enough, happy enough, uh, cool enough, skinny enough, young enough, all enough, right? All of these standards that we really. Worry about succeeding? About, yeah. Okay. So that's why, that's why we worry about what other people think about us. That's why we seek validation from other people is because we are social beings and we're only only a self from relationship.[00:14:30]
[00:14:30] Dr. Jodi: It means we only see ourself as reflected off the people around us. So even if we're validating ourself, it's usually because we've had some baseline of some people who validated us that we could connect back to. And if you grew up with nobody validating you at all, hopefully you had some friends or some teacher or somebody along the way that did even have a little bit that you could pick up from.
[00:14:59] Dr. Jodi: We're a self [00:15:00] relationship, and so we have to pick up from those good relationships and then start to surround ourself with good people. If you're worried about people validating you or worried about seeking validation from others, it's because you probably are isolated. And you probably don't have people around you who, who lift you up.
[00:15:20] Dr. Jodi: And so that's what you have to do. You wanna surround yourself with people, with a good, solid community of people who lift you up. And if you had that, you would stop seeking [00:15:30] validation from others because it would just be there and you will feel it and be able to then validate yourself and know your worth.
[00:15:38] Dr. Jodi: Alright, I know I'm, I have this all outlined in notes in front of me, but when I go live, I just kind of go with. All right. So we evolved to prioritize belonging because we need that for survival. Um, but it's cultural. This is what I covered. I'm, I'm, I'm summarizing here. It's cultural. We have this comparison culture because we have these high [00:16:00] expectations that we all think we have to meet.
[00:16:02] Dr. Jodi: And if we don't meet them, we're inadequate and they're unrealistic, so of course we're not gonna reach them. And so we're running around feeling self-esteem and feeling inadequate. It's ridiculous because these standards are unreasonable. So we have to really be aware and we're not really aware of 'em.
[00:16:19] Dr. Jodi: It's like in our subconscious, these things are so high, we don't make them. We feel inadequate. So what we have to do is really look at what those are. What are those [00:16:30] expectations? Make them reasonable, make them realistic. Then we'll meet them and feel good about ourself. We have to really decide what success.
[00:16:42] Dr. Jodi: For us, write, write smart goals. If we wrote smart goals and there's a, a video on smart goals you could get here if we had smart goals, that means specific, measurable, achievable, relatable, relevant, and time [00:17:00] limited If we made smart goals for ourselves instead of these unrealistic expectations. We'd start meeting them and build trust in ourself.
[00:17:11] Dr. Jodi: And when we build trust in ourself and surround ourself with people who also trust us, we wouldn't be seeking validation from others at all because we just would feel this sustainable ability to believe in ourselves. [00:17:30] Then we'd be good citizens and we'd be good to other people and be kind, and people would wanna be around us and they'd flock to us, and we feel really grounded.
[00:17:38] Dr. Jodi: We'd feel really connected to nature, connected to.
[00:17:44] Dr. Jodi: We wouldn't spend so much time worrying about what other people think of us. We'd be busy serving the world, right? Serving each other, enjoying each other, being spontaneous, going on adventures, all of those things you could do if your energy wasn't [00:18:00] zapped, doing these silly things like not liking themselves very much, not liking ourself very much.
[00:18:07] Dr. Jodi: Yeah, creativity, adventure. Those are the fun things that we have in our life that we really wanna have. So here are some signs that you are stuck seeking validation, like a a, a seeking validation cycle. Here are some signs of it. You feel unworthy unless you hear someone saying good things about you. And if it's been a while since someone said anything good about you, you feel [00:18:30] bad about yourself.
[00:18:31] Dr. Jodi: That might sound familiar. That might sound familiar for you. You might have a kid who feels like that too. When no one says anything good about them, they start to feel really bad about themselves. That means we're in a cycle and it doesn't mean there's mentally ill or something's wrong with them, or they have anxiety.
[00:18:47] Dr. Jodi: This is cultural. But if they're not aware of how the culture's affecting them and what they could do to stop it, then takes does.[00:19:00]
[00:19:01] Dr. Jodi: Fearing criticism, really being worried about how you appear because you're afraid of being left out or someone criticizing you or someone making fun of you. Um, vulnerability feels really dangerous, so if you stand out at all, it feels really dangerous. So when people feel like that, they are stuck in that cycle of seeking validation or needing validation to.[00:19:30]
[00:19:30] Dr. Jodi: That's what it is, right? They need validation to feel good about themselves because they don't have a sustainable way to feel good about themselves. They don't trust themselves. They don't believe in themselves. That's anxiety. Anxiety, getting in there and telling you you're vulnerable and you can't, you can't handle stuff and you're weak and all of that.
[00:19:48] Dr. Jodi: And you know, anxiety needs you to believe that stuff. Or you could do the things that I teach you to do to build trust in yourself. To build the belief in yourself, [00:20:00] to build confidence in yourself, and then the world's, world's your oyster. Another, uh, another sign that you're stuck in that seeking validation cycle is that you, um, play small.
[00:20:16] Dr. Jodi: If you play small, so you're off everyone's radar, so nobody notices you, so you don't stand out. That is a sign. Another sign is that you isolate yourself. You're so worried about being seen as bad that you'd [00:20:30] rather not be seen at all. And so you stay home. It, it creates this social anxiety, a fear of being out there and then you lose out on fun things and opportunities and because that is so dis uncomfortable discomfort, that is so uncomfortable to be out there.
[00:20:50] Dr. Jodi: It's some social occasion because who knows who's gonna think anything and you're in your head worrying about it so much. That discomfort is so great that you'd [00:21:00] rather not even go that social anxiety discomfort.
[00:21:06] Dr. Jodi: Last but not least, people pleasing. People pleasing. You know, there's a difference between, there's a negative connotation to people pleasing because people pleasing is often done from our deficit. We feel bad about ourself and we're pleasing people to try to support our sense of worth or try to act, try to prove our [00:21:30] sense of worth so we please somebody to try to make sure that we're included or they like us.
[00:21:37] Dr. Jodi: We don't want them to be upset about us. We don't want them to exclude us, and so we people please to stay in the good graces. And if we didn't, we would really feel vulnerable. We'd feel really scared about that. A lot of times people pleasing comes from a history of somebody not being very nice.
[00:21:55] Dr. Jodi: Sometimes people grow up in situations where the adults in their life [00:22:00] weren't very nice to them, but they don't think about it as abuse. But it is the definition of abuse is somebody, uh, who uses power in a relationship to get what they want. That's abuse. They might not even know they're abusing.
[00:22:17] Dr. Jodi: Because they're just so self-centered in their head or narcissistic, and so they want you, right? They, they use tactics [00:22:30] over people and their lives so that they feel better about themselves, right? They, they manipulate situation or make people feel bad so that they feel better. That's abuse. That's abuse.
[00:22:43] Dr. Jodi: Could be with peers, it could be at work, be. Abuse be between siblings or parents and kids? Kids and parents. Parent to parent. Uh, couple to couple. Uh, so many different situations. Friendship to friendship. There could be so many just [00:23:00] situations where people use these kind of power tactics and if there's power being used, it's abuse.
[00:23:06] Dr. Jodi: Even if the person doesn't mean to abuse and doesn't, would never describe it that way.
[00:23:14] Dr. Jodi: The person. Person, and it's unsustainable. That's us. We're so busy about seeking validation that we don't have this robustness of self-trust and self-confidence, and it makes us try to grab power. Okay, [00:23:30] so people pleasing, if you think about it, literally, it's beautiful. Pleasing other people or taking care of other people or making people happy.
[00:23:40] Dr. Jodi: I mean, it's a beautiful thing. So if you think about it literally, and not the connotations, it's usually used in the term, people Pleasing. Pleasing people is a beautiful thing. I love to bring that back, but let me tell you about the difference between doing things for others and people pleasing. One is from an [00:24:00] overflow.
[00:24:01] Dr. Jodi: You feel really good. You feel robust. You feel filled up, and you wanna give to somebody else and they give to you back. It's a mutual thing. Maybe not all of it's mutual because they might be a stranger, but you're getting something back from somebody so you're not being generous out of your deficits.
[00:24:23] Dr. Jodi: You're being generous out of your overflow. People pleasing is out of a deficit. [00:24:30] You don't have the robustness in the beginning, and so you're trying to prove you're worthy by people placing that right, some of the costs to you to seek validation from others, some of the costs to you are, you feel worse, right?
[00:24:49] Dr. Jodi: It's not. It's unsustainable, so it's not making you feel better about yourself. It can. In the short term, or if you actually surrounded yourself, if you were seeking [00:25:00] validation and you actually surround yourself with people who are gonna be consistently lifting you up, that would be okay. That would be great.
[00:25:09] Dr. Jodi: Uh, another cost is you're not fully yourself. You're so busy trying to be the person that other people would like, that you're not your authentic self. That's a cost. It's a very serious to. Uh, isolation is also a cost. We talked about that and not growing, not growing emotionally, [00:25:30] not growing in your ability to regulate your emotions, because you can't grow at all.
[00:25:35] Dr. Jodi: You're stuck. You're stuck in this cycle of needing validation, and that takes all your time and energy. You're not growing emotionally. You're not growing building trust in yourself. You're not taking any risks because they're too risky. Risks are too risky. You're not doing them.
[00:25:53] Dr. Jodi: Yeah, you feel worse. So, uh, I, I'm getting a, [00:26:00] getting a question here. So, how do you feel worthy if you're feeling unworthy? Like I said, surround yourself with good people. If you once surround yourself with really good people, and two, practicing your own skills and building trust. So that goes to that, that, that practice that I always give you this practice of every night before you go to bed, write down three things that you did that day.
[00:26:26] Dr. Jodi: We need to start to practice seeing the things that we've [00:26:30] accomplished because we have practiced for a really long time. We have practiced for a really long time, not being able to see. Something's wrong with my video. Uh, we've been practicing for a really long time seeing our deficits. We live in this deficit culture that we're constantly seeing our deficits because we're so afraid of being kicked out of the group.
[00:26:58] Dr. Jodi: We're so afraid of being [00:27:00] invalidated by other people or judged by other people and listen. So, so we need to practice the opposite. We need to write down those three things.
[00:27:10] Dr. Jodi: People can't judge you unless it's about something you judge yourself about. People can't judge you unless you're already judging yourself about that. It just wouldn't affect you. I talked about this again in my declutter in your mind video, but if somebody told you you were a terrible nut bull picker, you're terrible about [00:27:30] picking out a good bowl for nuts to display at a party.
[00:27:35] Dr. Jodi: Who cares, right? Nobody's thinking about that. It doesn't keep you up at night worrying about if you're picking out a bowl that other people wouldn't ostracize you about. We don't have that many parties actually. Uh, but we don't, we don't think about that too much. It's not something we're worried about.
[00:27:52] Dr. Jodi: So if someone said that to us, we'd be like, you're crazy. Anytime someone criticizes you about something that you don't care [00:28:00] about. You automatically discount that judgment because you don't care and it shows up big if it's something that you do care about. So if they said you, um, if someone judged you for, um, um, I'm trying to think of something that said, uh, something relatable that you would care about.
[00:28:21] Dr. Jodi: I guess like if I was fat and I was, you know, I mean, I'm not somebody. And was really upset [00:28:30] about not liking their body and thinking that other people are judging them for their body and judging them as lazy or whatever because their body wasn't perfect. That's the kind of thing, and you also twisted to being about your body when it might not be.
[00:28:46] Dr. Jodi: But that's the kind of thing we're afraid of. And that would land, like we'd notice that if somebody was the, someone was a jerk about that, we notice that. I was recently in a situation where somebody called someone [00:29:00] a terrible thing, but one of the, one of the words of the group of words that they called this person was fat and she didn't care.
[00:29:08] Dr. Jodi: That was not something she worried about people judging her on, and she just like laughed that off. We knew that the, the person who was doing it was, um, like, we don't give, that person had no power in our mind because that person. I'm trying to, you know, that person was kind of off his rocker, right? He was having a, [00:29:30] he was having a mental breakdown moment, so we didn't give credits to anything he was saying.
[00:29:36] Dr. Jodi: He was just being a jerk and mean to everybody. So that was part of it. We didn't care. We didn't give it any credibility. What he said, and the fact that he said, used the word fat, could touch some people and upset some people, but it didn't hurt. Because she's like, I do not judge myself for that at all, so I don't even care.
[00:29:58] Dr. Jodi: He's like, she's, she's like, ha, ha, ha, you tried [00:30:00] to hurt me. Did not hurt. You see what I mean? Like you have to care about it for it to land. And so if you're really worried about other people judging you, just stop caring about what people think about you, because you don't have to care about what people think about you.
[00:30:15] Dr. Jodi: I want you to care about if somebody thought you were mean. Because take that as a feedback. Like, oh, if someone thinks, I'm mean, I wanna make sure I'm not being mean to people. Well, like this guy who was saying, criticizing all these people around him 'cause of [00:30:30] his problem that we don't care about. But you know, this is the difference.
[00:30:37] Dr. Jodi: You know, we say like, don't care what anyone else thinks about you except for make sure you know that you affect the field around you. Your kindness and goodness to other people is seen and felt. And if people are calling you out because you're being selfish, that I want you to listen to, I want you to care about that because I'd like you to change your behavior.
[00:30:56] Dr. Jodi: And if you're feeling good about yourself and trusting yourself, you wouldn't be acting like [00:31:00] that anyway. And maybe you're not even watching these videos 'cause you're watching some videos about, I don't know, other people that you could joke and be mean about. So, Ooh, we're going over here. Okay. Sorry about that.
[00:31:16] Dr. Jodi: Um, so build awareness. So the first thing to do to get better, just to build it up, and I think I've talked about it, the whole episode here, how to feel better, how to build awareness. Um, when you're faced with a decision or a [00:31:30] task that you have to make a decision to do, you say, what am I doing this for?
[00:31:35] Dr. Jodi: And for who am I doing this? If you could say something that is important to you and it's for you, or something that's important to you, then go ahead and do it. If you're doing something or some task because you're worried about people judging you negatively, if you didn't, then that's what you want to remind yourself that you're doing it for that reason and really call your attention to it.
[00:31:58] Dr. Jodi: So you could [00:32:00] change if you want to. You could decide, do I still wanna be doing that? Again, build self-trust and self validation. You can validate yourself, right? If you surround yourself with good people and you happen to be alone and somebody hurts your feelings, you'll be able to validate yourself because it's there.
[00:32:17] Dr. Jodi: That self-confidence is there because you've had, in general, in your life, you have good people around you. You have enough of a self worth to be like, yeah, self-compassion. I understand. I understand why. [00:32:30] No matter what you feel, right? Self-compassion is like, I get it. I understand why that hurt my feelings.
[00:32:36] Dr. Jodi: Just understanding yourself, that's self validation, and you could do that if you feel good and robust in life. Okay, so make success doable. Like I said, the smart goals, instead of having these unrealistic expectations. Make success. Do a bowl, please, please, um, be comfortable with discomfort. Try to get comfortable being in discomfort.
[00:32:59] Dr. Jodi: [00:33:00] We need to do this in general. We are so afraid of discomfort, and that's part of this, the screens making us feel powerless, worthless, and outta control. We don't trust ourself, and so we're afraid of discomfort means unhappy. Discomfort means vulnerable and in danger, and we feel really vulnerable when we're uncomfortable, but uncomfortable is safe.
[00:33:21] Dr. Jodi: Most of the. You are safe. You could be uncomfortable sometimes and get used to yourself. Do hard things. Get used to [00:33:30] yourself being uncomfortable because life is gonna get so much easier and anxiety just cannot be part of your life. If you're, if you're used to being uncomfortable, if you're used to doing hard things, you'll build trust in yourself and you will not in anxiety and depression can stay.
[00:33:48] Dr. Jodi: And that doesn't mean like if you have a context of people being horrible to you. That has to change as well. Right? But it's not just you that has to change. Because if [00:34:00] you're constantly being invalidated by everyone around you, if you're in a situation where it is not a healthy situation for you, that, I don't mean stay uncomfortable in that kind of thing, that's not, I mean.
[00:34:13] Dr. Jodi: Sometimes we stay in that thing 'cause we have a little bit of like pseudo control. We think that we understand it and see and try to pacify these people. It feels a little bit in control. That's why we stay in those things. Sometimes you need to just like get out, get out of those things and sometimes [00:34:30] you're wrapped up financially with people like that and it takes a while.
[00:34:33] Dr. Jodi: You need to take a little bit of time. Okay. Lastly, you wanna limit social media. Because social media really emphasizes that comparison culture. And so we really wanna, we, we don't need to be doing that all day every day. You know, we don't, we need to be scrolling passively and seeing all the people doing great things when you're not doing anything.
[00:34:53] Dr. Jodi: Um, but in your bed scrolling that makes you feel bad, the limit that time. Uh, you'll [00:35:00] feel a difference immediately when you limit that time. And lastly, I said that before, but, but absolutely. Lastly, I'm just gonna remind you to every day when you go to sleep, write down three actions that you took, three times that you used your personal agency, because that's gonna get you practice to seeing it.
[00:35:18] Dr. Jodi: And as you do that day after day, after day after day, eventually you're just gonna notice it all day and build trust in yourself because you're gonna see yourself as skilled instead of unskilled. That powerless, worthless and outta [00:35:30] control. We think we're unskilled. You are so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so skilled and adaptable, and able, uh, and, and those messages make you feel like you're not, but you are, you are.
[00:35:43] Dr. Jodi: So that we had to find that again. And now all we do is practice seeing it, and then we're gonna find it again and feel so much better. So if you aren't in a cycle of seeking validation from others, I hope that you learned a lot in this video to help you switch that behavior around so [00:36:00] you can feel good about yourself all of the time.
[00:36:04] Dr. Jodi: So my show Ask Dr. Jodi is live every Monday at 8:00 PM. You could sign up to be coached live on the show. Just come to jodiaman.com/live. jodiaman.com/live and watch this video next.
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