Community Validation

Community Validation

Community Validation is an important if not essential part of developing and maintaining a secure and balanced life. Having a community that validates you does not come by accident; it comes from defining and recognizing those values about life that are relevant and true to you, and true about you. That makes community selection very personal. We will discuss below how to define your personal community.

Crafting a total community is based on your true values that have the following characteristics:

1. Availability
2. Acceptance
3. Affirmation
4. Affection

Availability – imagine being part of a community that serves as a personal resource that is committed, operable, ready to assist you. It is the total of the community’s accessibility, reliability, maintainability, serviceability and securability. In other words, when you need them, people are there for you. Validated!

Acceptance – the fact of being accepted, approved. A process of being received as adequate or suitable, typically to be admitted into a group. Validated!

Affirmation – the groups provide encouragement, emotional support or motivation, followed by  actions of support or approval. Validated!

Affection – a gentle feeling of fondness or liking and caring for someone. It’s a personal, even a physical way of showing a fondness that consumes you. Validated!

If your community does not give you the above, you will be attracted to pseudo communities that will do that, even if you have to lower your personal standards to get that. What am I saying? When there is a need in you that is unmet by your community, unconsciously you will find a way to fill that need, even if you have to lower your personal standards. If this all can happen within your community of high vales and standards, then great. But when that need remains urgent and unfulfilled, it is human nature to deviate to where that can be met. Here is where we run into ethical dilemma: living by your true values and meeting your needs are both important and necessary in life. But getting your needs met through your trusting circle or outside of that circle, changes or increases the risks of consequences.

So, it is very important to succeed in defining your personal community of “shared values” and to keep improving on it. Defining also make you decide if you are OK with where you are or what you have attracted into your life. Your community will encompass several aspect of what constitutes a balanced life.

1. Family (complete)
2. Profession (limited role)
3. Business (labor intensive)
4. Social groups (language, worldliness, status, group identification, godliness, personal growth, sports, etc.)
5. Friends (casual and BFF)
6. Shared faith.

Contemplating on this topic is an exercise in excellence! It is a good idea to undergo this exercise every 10 years as you enter the next decade of life to reflect on what and where circumstances have brought you to this perfect moment in time, and to see where you can improve on this perfection. Yes, perfection is not a state of nirvana, but a process of defining and redefining ourselves, upgrading ourselves if you will. Truth is, everything about your life to this exact moment has perfectly molded this exact reality. It couldn’t be anything but the perfect place and stage to be than it is right now.

Don’t feel that this is your version of perfection? Great! Then you can see why this topic is super important. We don’t get to live this life alone and we do get to choose who we include and exclude (yes we do). Define and then attract the more refined community that validates you at every step. It is your choice and it is your prerogative to do so. Be Well!

Yours in Real Life,
docMIKE