Stop Treating Your Confidence Like a Situationship: Why You Need to Break Up With Seeking Validation
By Nina — I'm the friend who tells you what you need to hear about your situationship. ·
Your Confidence Needs a Break-Up
Let’s be real for a second. We spend so much time obsessing over why he didn’t text back or why that guy from Hinge was breadcrumbing us, but we rarely look at the root cause. It’s not just that he’s a jerk (though, statistically, he probably is). It’s that you’re handing him your confidence like it’s a spare key to your apartment.
I’ve been single for a year now, and let me tell you, the silence in my dating life has been the loudest wake-up call of my life. When you stop looking for someone else to validate your existence, you realize that your “confidence” has been a total situationship. You’re waiting for external cues—a compliment, a match, a 'you look great'—to feel okay. But just like that guy who keeps telling you he’s 'not ready for a label,' the temporary highs you get from external validation are never going to commit to you. It’s time to ghost your need for approval.
Stop Outsourcing Your Self-Worth
Confidence isn’t a feeling that descends upon you when you finally get the promotion or find the guy who actually knows how to send a complete sentence. Confidence is a practice. It’s the habit of keeping promises to yourself.
We love to blame our lack of confidence on 'imposter syndrome' or 'bad luck,' but usually, it’s just that we’re bad at being our own best friends. If you treated your best friend the way you talk to yourself when you mess up at work or strike out on a date, you’d be serving a restraining order. You have to stop outsourcing your worth to people who don't even know how to use a calendar. Building confidence begins the moment you decide that your opinion of yourself is the only one that actually impacts your bottom line.
The “I Decide” Protocol
If you want to build ironclad confidence, you have to stop asking for permission to be great. I call this the “I Decide” protocol. It’s simple, but it’s annoying because it requires work.
Before you make a move—whether it’s asking for a raise, setting a boundary with your toxic mom, or even changing up your style—stop scanning the room for approval. Ask yourself: If nobody was watching, would I still be proud of this?
Here’s how you start:
1. Audit your inner circle: If you have friends who only feel good when you’re down, you’re never going to grow. You need people who challenge your bullshit, not people who enable your self-pity. 2. The 24-hour rule: When you get a rejection—a 'no' at work or a ghosted text—you are allowed to wallow for exactly 24 hours. After that, you treat it as data, not a character assessment. Did you learn? Cool. Move on. 3. Do one thing that 'scares' you weekly: It doesn't have to be skydiving. It could be sending that email you’ve been drafting for a month or walking into a bar alone. The more you do things that make you nervous, the more you realize that the 'disaster' you're afraid of rarely happens.
Stop Waiting for the 'Perfect' Version of You
I see so many people waiting to feel confident before they start the business, before they move to a new city, or before they start dating again. Newsflash: That 'perfect' version of you who is never nervous and never messes up? She doesn’t exist. She’s a fantasy designed to keep you paralyzed. You don’t need to be fearless to be confident. You just need to be willing to be a little bit messy while you figure it out.
Confidence is essentially just having evidence of your own capability. Every time you show up for yourself—like actually going to the gym when you said you would or ending a conversation when someone crosses a line—you add a brick to the wall. Eventually, you stop being a house of cards and start being a fortress.
The Bottom Line
Look, I’m not saying you’re going to wake up tomorrow feeling like a boss 100% of the time. You’re going to have days where you feel like a fraud. That’s human. But stop treating your confidence like a situationship that you need to nurse back to health. You don’t need to fix your confidence; you need to stop giving it away to people who don't deserve the time of day.
You’re the main character, babe. Start acting like you actually believe it. You’re capable of so much more than crying over a guy who still uses his mom’s Netflix account.
I’m curious—what’s one thing you’ve been putting off because you’re waiting to feel 'ready'? Reply to this, let’s talk it out. I’m here to call you out on your excuses, but I’m also here to help you get to the other side of them. Let’s get to work.