If you’re forever looking around for validation, you’ll never be able to make anything that’s completely your own. Because you don’t even know what you think.

This is incredibly freeing, because it means I judge myself by my own standard of behavior in every relationship, and not by the other person’s response.

Run your own race, as in: you set certain standards for yourself, and you focus on meeting them. When you meet them, you’re proud of yourself. When you don’t, you urge yourself to try harder. You don’t question your standards based on what anyone else is doing.