You don’t need to wait for external validation to move forward.
You don’t need to stay stuck. You can give yourself internal validation to affirm your trust in yourself.
The key thing is to focus on what you want and do the things that serve you. You don’t want to build resentment for the things that you should have, could have and haven’t done. You don’t need to be completely ‘ready’ to keep moving forward. You do have to keep trusting yourself.
You are responsible for your own feelings, not anyone else’s feelings. It’s not your responsibility to take on other people’s emotions, so just keep working on your own.
If someone tries to make you feel a certain way, step back and consider whether it’s valid and focus on how you want to feel. Are you listening to your own inner compass? Can you find greater strength within to honour your inner voices?
Consider what your limits are and what you need to do to protect your limits. You know yourself best, so take the opportunity to figure out what you need to do to protect your own mental health.
If someone isn’t ready for change, that’s not on you. Be ready for those who are ready and willing to move forward. There are those people out there, you just need to keep going and find them.
Here are 3 ideas to keep honouring your inner compass:
- Keep working on honing your courage to speak up for yourself. Trust that you can speak up for what you truly desire without the fear of being rejected, not understood or seen.
- Keep showing up for yourself. Show up even when the feedback from the other side/party isn’t positive. Challenging times remind you to keep showing up and doing what you need to do in the face of rejection, confrontation, and discomfort. Even if the other side does not agree with you, honour what is right for you and say how you feel so that you can express yourself to the best of your abilities. You have your own perspective and it matters. Even if others don’t agree or try to make you feel differently, stay true to who you are.
- Keep working on your mindfulness practice. Prepare yourself and manage your own expectations. Accept that there will be failures and things won’t always turn out the way that you want. Listen to your own intuition and what is right for you. When you are flooded by what everyone wants and expects from you, it’s challenging to hear your own voices to figure out what you truly want. Spending time with yourself can be scary, and it can also be empowering to give yourself the space to hear your own thoughts and understand your own patterns and habits.
You can keep yourself busy with your never-ending to-do lists and avoid the work that you need to do on yourself. Being busy distracts you from focusing on yourself and doing the inner work to understand yourself better.
External validation is what you are taught to chase, it feels familiar and almost comfortable.
However, if you can give yourself the opportunity to consider another perspective, think about investing more time and energy into yourself to become a better version of yourself.
How would that feel for you?