Have you ever had this experience? You just finished a writing project that is important to you. It might be creating a blog post, writing a book, getting a cover design, getting a new client, or something else.

You’re sitting with someone you admire over dinner and mention that you completed it. You show them your finished project, they look at it for three seconds, shrug as they acknowledge that it’s cool, then go back to their food.

These moments can be crushing, but only if you let them. So often, we look to other people for validation. We want their approval because it makes us feel good.

But validation from others should only come after you have first validated yourself.

Regardless of what others think, the most important validation comes from your own sense of doing something you love, from creating value for others, from overcoming challenges.

Don’t give the other person’s shrug any meaning. It has nothing to do with the value of your work. Remember, they are living their own lives, with their own problems, and they are looking for validation just as much as you are.

To most other people, your project represents a blip on the radar screen of life. Don’t look to them for approval and validation. First look inward, and then you will be able to face outward to the world without needing something from them, but instead coming with something to offer.