“Validate Yourself.”

To validate yourself means to provide yourself with confidence, a sense of courage, satisfaction, and love. Don’t rely on others to “validate” you, get a head start and validate yourself. Recently, one of my friends had a little romantic fling with a guy she was in class with. She was completely infatuated with him, but he didn’t seem to care for her emotionally. After their incredibly brief romance, he stopped talking to her altogether until three months later – just in time for graduation. But now, after much time and reflection, she realized she didn’t like him at all and he really just provided her with the confidence that someone cool and “popular” was interested in her. He asked her to hang out one night, and she spent hours getting ready and glamming herself up. She was sitting outside of a Rite Aide, in her car in the pouring rain after buying new mascara to get a text from him canceling. I told her she needs to stop looking to him for that validation that she can fit in, that she’s pretty, that she’s cool enough to be with, she needs to provide that validation for herself and develop an internal sense of health and self-love.  With this, she texted him and canceled their raincheck.

Not only does this apply to boys, but so many other things in life. For me, it applies to work. I just started working as a camp counselor at the Y and it’s like being inserted back into high school, mean girls style. The counselors are all significantly older than me, incredibly cliquey, and transparently obnoxious and competitive. But I realized I don’t need my co-workers to validate me, I can validate myself. And with my adorable campers snuggling my arm and telling me the sweetest things, I don’t need to rely on negative people to lift me up.

So ladies, how does this apply to you? Discuss!! Woo!