Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have a really great technique that could change the depressive states that most of us get into when others do not give us the kind of validation we are seeking?

For the huge overwhelming majority of the world’s population, seeking validation from other’s is a pattern sewn right into the very fabric of our beings. I have yet to find a culture that teaches young people to see their own giftedness and then act on it in positive ways. Most of the world grows up in cultures of either high demands and criticism or low demands and abandonment. You can be living in the wealthiest family in the world or existing day to day on the street and still be plagued by the huge neediness of trying to get validated by others.

The principle of achievement is bolstered by being able to see an image of the self with positive qualities and doing positive things, but the world’s primary practice, aimed at increasing the level of growth, is to focus attention on negative aspects of the self through the use of criticism and fault finding. It goes completely against  both science and religion but, nonetheless, has been adopted worldwide as the major tool in most schools, businesses, and families.

What happens to all people is that they are impelled by their very natures toward positive growth. Everyone desires to be changing because we all have an irrepressible force within us that seeks transcendence. What the cultures of the world have all colluded in is a process that corrupts the transcendent nature rather than nurturing it. This is done very early on by telling people that they are sinful, weak, undeserving, worthless, and a whole host of other adjectives. The techniques of doing this have been handed down from one generation to the next for quite some time now so that it has become quite unconscious and second natured for almost everyone to either abandon or actively criticize the self of others.

Inwardly, since we all want to grow, we secretly, meaning unknowingly, look for ways to be validated (give positive value to ourselves). The best way to be validated is through self-validation, a process that can be taught very early on to children. Self validation means being able to see or hear inwardly the positive characteristics that exist both in your immanence ( the indwellingness of the past) and your transcendence (the future). When we have a clarity of vision or audition about the qualities we already have, it allows us to enthusiastically go after the qualities in the future that are as-yet-to be manifested. For instance, you can tell yourself and see yourself with the positive qualities that musicians have despite the fact you have never played an instrument and then the image will allow you to increase energy so that you can become the image in the actual world.

The mistake that the world makes is that instead of seeing and hearing musicians playing beautiful harmonies, it perceives the opposites and then emphasizes them. It sees and hears noise, disruptions, indiscipline, and irresponsibilty and then lets everyone know that they see the negative. This has an extremely negative effect on others which leaves them unable to energize toward positives goals, reinforces the negative state, and in the end depresses the size of the goals set.

The best musicians, athletes, or craftsmen are those that are motivated inwardly by their own vision of their own selves performing at higher levels. One of the problems that most people get into is that they look for the validation from someone else like their boss or spouse or parents. When they don’t hear the praise or get the reward, then they fall into the cycle of depressing expectations because they have put someone else in the place of what should be self-validation.

When you see and hear your own positive qualities both in the past and in the future with a great deal of clarity, then you have a sustainable inward system for improvement that allows for the release of large amounts of energy. When you do the opposite which is to see the bad qualities or look for validation and not get it, then the system becomes depressed and there is a huge drain on energy. Below is a technique that maybe useful in the process of achievement. Try it.

Self- Validating Technique

Step 1: List several of the worst things you have been told about yourself or what you tell yourself all the time. (e.g. impatient, worried, sloppy, lazy, overbearing, greedy, shy, hurtful, etc.) In using this technique you don’t have to deny the bad qualities because they do have a usefulness in identifying the areas of growth so it is important to identify how you have been invalidated. What you don’t want to do is to hang out in the bad qualities and then become self-loathing or aggressive. In this step you are just bringing up the patterns to consciousness that are running your life right now in an unconscious manner so that you can change it.

Step 2: Make a list of all of the ways that you try to get validation from others. ( pleasing, asking for it, sitting around hoping for it, etc.)

Step 3: Make a list of at least 10 positive qualities or abilities that you already have. (organization, taking initiative, kindness, finishing what you start, joyfulness, calmness, etc.)

Step 4: Make a list of 10 positive qualities or abilities that you would like to develop in the next decade. (e.g. patience, peacefulness, perseverance, organization, compassion, fixing cars, using a computer)

Step 5: Prioritize the list of qualities that you want to develop in the next decade. ( 1 is most important 10 least important right now) Note: You can often work on more than one skill area at a time such as becoming better in computers or a better swimmer, but qualities such as patience are of a nature that you can only do one at a time. Qualities are generalizable so when you develop patience it will automatically transfer from one activity to another. We usually think about developing one quality each year because they are so complex and have such an infinitude of understandings that you don’t make enough progress in less time.

Step 6: Tell yourself (write it several times if you need to) that seeking validation from others always ends up in depressing your goals. “When I see or hear myself with positive qualities, I am energized and can achieve higher goals.” Decide who you seek validation from the most by realizing that this is the person who you are most likely to have a love-hate relationship with. Determine to let go  of the practice of seeking validation from them. Just let it go.

Step 7: Take each one of the positive abilities or qualities you already have and then visualize them. If they are more auditory like music or speaking, hear yourself with the quality and if they are more physical like dance, see and feel yourself doing them. The clearer your mind is on the positives you already have, the more motivated you will be about adding to the list. You can repeat this step everyday until things are so clear that you are fired up with motivation.

Step 8: Changing belief in invalidation. Take the list of from step 1 and then decide which is the worst quality that you believe about yourself. If you are in the habit of seeking validation from others, then what will happen to you is that you will have a huge amount of tension to try to avoid looking at these things. This is because they are so painful or hurtful that you don’t want to go there. You can simple relax the tension and take a look at what you believe about yourself. It is ok.

The number one worst quality will match the number one positive quality in the future that you wish to develop. So if you are impatient, the quality that you are going for is probably patience, peacefulness or calm. If you don’t find a match, then you probably want to reprioritize one list or the other until you get them to match. If you feel like you are controlling, then it could be a match with creativity, with quitting you would probably need determination, etc..

Now you will have 2 realities. One is the negative quality in the present and the other is positive one in the future. Whatever the negative picture is like from the negative quality, change it to the positive characteristics in the future. If you are lazy, it maybe that you see yourself  as inactive, dull, and lying around doing nothing or frivolous things. If the positive quality is to be more active and service-oriented, then you can see yourself that way with a lot of color and brightness.

Refine the image until it is exactly how you want it.

Step 9: In NLP this is called a swish. Basically what you will do is put the negative image up in your mind to the left and the positive image up in your mind to the right as if there were two images at once. You can swish them by first making the negative image large and the positive image small. Then you can swish them by instantly changing them so that negative one becomes small and then positive one large. You may need to practice this several times. The idea is to replace the negative image of yourself with a positive one.

Step 10: Look into the future and see what you want to accomplish in the next week and right it down. You should have the new energy turned on and it should allow for more achievement.