Confessions of a Validation Seeker
It’s hard, right? When you decide you are the kind of person who pushes themselves to keep going even when things feel way too much, doing anything BUT that seems like a massive failure. It feels like you’re going against who you truly are and what’s important to you, and that can be insanely uncomfortable. I wrote myself a list this week of Things That Make Me Uncomfortable (making this list is now on that very list, ironically) and choosing to take a step back from something was one of them. Along with talking about my future and general state of happiness (I’m fine though).
The last two competitions I have worked towards have been extremely challenging. Pushing myself to go for personal records or above when my body has felt pretty average is something I don’t regret, as there’s always something that can be learnt from this experience. In saying that though, I do feel it’s actually harder for me to make the decision not to do this very same thing again than it is to decide to give it a minute. I spoke to my brother at length on this very topic. He is three years younger than me, and has been an elite athlete for half of his life, so he’s been around the block when it comes to training setbacks and adversity in this realm.
It felt so incredibly validating to hear his experience, and how similar we are in terms of mindset. He spoke about his own competitive history, and of the times he had chosen to do exactly what I do - push through everything for the sake of achievement, often to the detriment of his physical health. He also said that he wouldn’t change anything, but that he understood that making the call NOT to do the thing was harder than it was to just do it. It’s wild to me that we share these traits, given that our lives took such different pathways (he wasn’t a crack smoking idiot at any point). Anyway.
For me, I genuinely find comfort and reward in pushing myself to the point of burnout or injury, because this validates my need to feel like I’m doing enough, and that I am, in fact, enough. Like, look how fucked up I am, isn’t that proof that I couldn’t possibly be doing any more?! I can see that this is a really unhelpful mindset, but it’s something that shows up in many areas of my life. I’m not sure if having an awareness of this makes it any better, but maybe it’s a step towards some kind of growth, like attending your first AA meeting or something. Like Hi, I’m Sarah, and I am extremely validated by achievement (also, physical touch and acts of service).
Alongside my list of Things That Make Me Uncomfortable, I wrote another list, entitled Things That Make Me Happy. This list was significantly shorter, but it was of interest to me that whilst training made the top three, competing didn’t get a mention. What this tells me is that, although pushing myself to achieve things is validating for me, it doesn’t actually bring me happiness. After a lot of thought, I believe that the journey for me brings more joy than the outcome, because regardless of what I achieve, I will just continue to move the goal post, and render the former achievement irrelevant. For example, it’s easy to forget that just two years ago my life goal was to own a gym, and yet here we are.
So, understanding myself a little bit more, I know that the challenge and growth here is to go against what feels normal for me, rather than repeating the same pattern in some wild and potentially misguided attempt for a different outcome. They say more isn’t better, better is better, which is what I personally have told many of you on occasion…looks like it’s time to start taking my own advice. Watch this space.
