Validation surrounds our every day life it seems. In seconds you can tweet something and receive social validation if it's what follows normalities. When something that seems as simple as getting a like is what seems to be a social standard for validation how does that coincide with real validation, personal validation, spiritual validation. Where are we finding true validation.
I've learned to separate people's intentions from people's reactions. There will be people who praise you publicly that don't intend for you to succeed in the privacy of their own hearts. To decipher that is to protect yourself in a way where you know where your own intentions lie within what makes you feel validated. It's easier said than done, but people's opinions are ultimately forms of underwhelming validation. Man will always fail you, Biblical knowledge (Psalm 118:18). Essentially their opinions are obsolete. Their methods of socially condoning what's considered valued are obsolete. Even people whom you love will let you down and that's not to say that everyone is abhorrent, but everyone is subject to failure. It's up to you how you prepare for that failure.
Value seeing the good in others, but value more seeing the good in yourself, the good in God. Just realizing how temporary people's feelings can be and how fragile the social scale can be tipped into what's considered "cool" "right" or whatever. The only solidified validation is the one from with in you and Christ. People can suck, simply put. I think that as long as you're doing something that you makes you wanna pinch yourself to believe it's real is what matters the most.
I find that the human validation part can come later and even then it's a lot more underwhelming than you once placed value over. Others may pray on your down fall, but you may pray over your uprising. There can be a lot of security found in trusting yourself and God. I will place my bet on it every time. Most importantly I realize that validation in a way is what runs the world, but that's an earthly perspective and framework. I don't limit myself to that thinking and I stress the word limit.
Find peace within stability of grounding yourself in yourself in God. Know your values and how those align. When you can look at yourself and know that what defines you is limitless it leaves room for limitless growth. That growth inspires confidence and true validation in a spiritual nature.