Hi friends
Hope you have had a good week!
This week, I was listening to Jay Shetty’s latest solo episode - 4 Things That Are Not Love and 4 Ways To Know You Have Found The One - and one thing definitely stood out to me.
VALIDATION IS NOT LOVE.
While this episode was obviously centred around finding one’s significant other, I think it could easily be applied to life in general.
For example, right now I’m honestly really not feeling 100% motivated in my day job and am finding it difficult to stick to a consistent routine in life outside of it.
As a result it is easy for me to want to seek out validation for these to make me feel like I’m on the right path, instead of enjoying these for the sake of doing them which arguably is how I became “successful” at these in the first place.
As Shetty points out, validation is something that someone can give to you in order to get something from you.
Validation can be based on something that you’ve achieved, or something that that you have accomplished.
DO NOT confuse this with love.
Granted, validation is not a bad thing and is certainly not unhealthy. In fact, as Shetty elaborates, what someone validates about you shows what they value about you.
However, validation, while certainly a part of love, does not make you know you are actually in love.
So, I need to ask myself when I receive validation from, say, my colleagues: Does this validation go towards the true “me”?
I received this positive feedback over the past fortnight through my company’s official feedback portal:
At the time, it made me feel good…for about all of 10 seconds. Is it because I don’t “love” what I do? Is it because I’m receiving credit for doing a job that I deep down feel like I don’t want to be solely identified as?
Don’t get me wrong, I like what I do but as Shetty alludes, validation for what you have achieved can be confused for validation for who you are as a person.
And in times of exhaustion, dissatisfaction or lack of excitement, it’s easy to do 🙋♂️
As a good friend referenced this week over dinner on Friday, maybe at the end of the day love is blind.
Sometimes, things in life are just better when you stumble upon them unwittingly, when you just go with the flow and when you’re just more relaxed and cool about stuff in general.
Hope that gives you some good food (or confusion!) for thought this week. As usual, I discuss below some of the things what I’ve been listening to and review how my running, golf and tennis training has been going over the past week. It’s now 1:30am on a Monday morning as I finish typing this so I’d better catch some shut eye before the work week starts!
Have a great week ahead!
David
✍️ This week: Highlights
1. Chicago Marathon Training Vlog
I’ve finally gotten around to putting together a YouTube update on my training for this year’s Chicago Marathon with Team Soul Ties for this year’s Chicago Marathon.
The guys really pushed me in this training run around Singapore’s Marina Bay on 26 February and I’m so much better for it!
Please also follow the team!
Colin Tung @coltung
Devathas Satianathan @dev_athas
Jeremy Sng @jellymee_rabbit
2. Lunch with my former boss
I had a good lunch with my former boss at a sports club I recently joined in Orchard, Singapore. We had a deep conversation on the value of good friendships, the importance of having a life outside the day job and the struggle with keeping at your hobbies. We also touch F45 franchising, which we both found out we were interested in doing at one point! So in essence, this was a conversation really only possible outside the boundaries of a day job identity and with a bunch of things in common.
I definitely need to make sure I continue to keep in touch with people who I have worked with in the past. Too often once I leave a company for a new role, I let the relationships slip, and I need to find ways to (i) remind myself to schedule something every so often and (ii) not get lazy with actually doing (i).
🎧 What I’m listening to
This podcast was recommended to me by a person I indirectly report to at work.
It’s a deep dive into the Srebonica genocide that took place in the mid-1990s, a topic I was completely oblivious to until I listened to this.
It’s not an easy listen and it took me a while to get into, but this series did offer a sobering look into the darkest side of humanity is highly topical with what is currently going on in Europe.
I listened to this 1.5 hr episode during a solid 11.5km run up and down part of Singapore’s Green Corridor last Sunday, 6 March:
A good one to try to make sense of the ongoing bizarre Russia-Ukraine saga.
🏟️ How I’ve been training
🏃♂️ Running: Honestly, not a lot this week. I did a solo 11.5km afternoon run on Sunday, 6 March - 11.5km up and down the Green Corridor and also ran with my running club, Marina Bay Rowing Club, with my friends Eric and Tom for a 5km jog around the Padang and War Memorial.
⛳ Golf: I had a lesson on Wednesday afternoon and was given this drill by my coach, Johnson, to do at home with a wall. The drill helps to promote a full left shoulder turn, which in turn reduces the changes of me using too much arms or over-swinging the club on the backswing. Will work on it in the next few days!
My other swings can be seen here.
🎾 Tennis: Played a great lunchtime game on Tuesday, 8 March at my sports club with a friend. We spent the first hour rallying and the next playing a closely fought set.It was pretty warm outside and I must confess I needed a cold beer after the game! Some highlights are here.
I also participated in a local doubles league on Saturday, 12 March out at Seng Kang in Singapore’s north-east. This was the semi-final round of the knock-out competition and my partner and I walked away with a W 8-5 to get into the finals! Here are some highlights from the post-match friendly doubles sets: Link
Thanks for reading my newsletter! Please consider subscribing for free to receive new posts and support my work.
✓