When I started my own health journey over a decade ago, it was because I felt like I had no control.
Over the course of a month, I had learned that my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer and had a few months to live, a long-term relationship ended, my grandmother died and the holidays happened.
While I sought control, I also sought validation for making changes to life and ultimately my health. At the time I didn’t realize it, but through a lot of therapy, I had realized that I hadn’t been living my life on my terms. I was constantly looking for approval as a byproduct of having experienced physical and emotional trauma during childhood. My fear of disapproval stemmed from a fear of not being good enough and being left behind.
Those thoughts pop up every now and then, but have quieted so much. I’m also better at recognizing them. I mentioned this in my last post.
In coaching and in therapy, this is called external validation or extrinsic motivation. Seeking something outside of yourself to provide approval and affirm beliefs, actions, decisions, etc. The opposite of this would be internal validation or intrinsic motivation – something inside yourself that is driving you forward.
It’s common to see someone switch from goals that are externally driven to those that are internally motivated. It’s also 100% reasonable that there is a flow between the two and for many goals and life changes they will coexist.
Both are powerful, and can have a place in our lives when we’re setting goals or making changes in our lives.
One of my health and wellness clients is a yoga instructor. She’s been “doing” and teaching yoga for a combined 15 years. We met when I took one of her classes.
Over the past few weeks as we’ve started our coaching relationship she expressed internal pressure to keep up with her own personal yoga practice. For context, she explained how yoga was something that helped her when she was in a low place, it helped her through recovery from addiction (her words). It helped her find herself. It’s something she wished she had when she experienced trauma during adolescent and young adult years.
She’s currently taking classes for an additional certification that would expand her personal and professional yoga practice and give her more tools to support others who have experienced trauma, addiction and substance misuse. While she still has drive to be a yoga teacher and build her skills, as she continued from student to teacher and continuous student she’s recognized that her personal passion has lessened.
In our most recent session, as she described her week I could tell that that she needed new outlets for her stress that were just for her, which meant shifting her mindset around what she believed she “should” do with her yoga practice. Cognitive distortions like “this”shoulds” can show up this for many and stem from negative beliefs and experiences.
We came to the conclusion that the insistence on a daily practice had inadvertently led to an internal struggle and she was “fighting” with herself. During our conversation, we discussed the reasons behind her relentless pursuit and explored the relationship she wants to have with yoga again, personifying it for a deeper understanding. This personification helped her visualize her thoughts and emotions, and shift her mindset.
Ultimately, she recognized how she has grown and changed over the past few years. She acknowledged that she has had an expectation that yoga wouldn’t change – even though she knows it has. Because of this, she’s giving herself the space to not force a daily practice, but instead picked one day a week where she doesn’t professionally incorporate yoga into her day.
We discussed other ways to move her body including me writing programming for her to do at home, dancing around the house, going for walks or bike rides locally.
She decided to focus on lessening her personal yoga practice to once a week, incorporate other forms of movement up to three times a week and a stretch goal – decrease her soda consumption by one can a week.
At the end of our session, she said she already felt better because we talked about the importance of giving herself a break and letting herself shift directions with her personal practice.
This is the positive side of external validation. It can give us feedback that can boost our confidence and reinforce our beliefs. She knew that she needed a break, but continued to feel that she shouldn’t because she is a yoga instructor.
As health professionals in a variety of health spaces, we put immense pressure on ourselves to show up and be examples for our clients, patients and students. Sometimes this causes us to do things that we would never recommend to those we support and guide – like preventing a shift in routine or goals.
So while the negative side of external validation can be a reliance on others for a sense of self-worth and may lead to increased self-doubt, I know that is absolutely not the case here. This is an example of why even those doing this work need support. The external validation and conversation can lead to improved internal dialogue and confidence in choice for healthier and sustainable action.
Finding a balance between external validation and internal satisfaction is crucial for cultivating a healthy a lifestyle meaning helpful boundaries with ourselves and others, helpful habits overall not just in the inherently physical health sense.
I can’t wait to check in with her this week and hear about how it felt for her to actively give herself a break, and what it meant for her to challenge the internal dialogue.
