How can I transform my need for approval and validation from the outside?

Your need for approval will continue as long as you don´t learn how to love yourself. When you love yourself there is no need for any approval from the outside. Approval is something that you learned in your childhood it was like a guidepost that showed you whether something was accepted or not accepted by your parents but what is right or what is wrong is only ever that what a person makes it to be. If your value system is different to that from your parents than something can be right or wrong depending on your view point. When your parents grew up they were told children should been seen but not heard. Today parents are much more relaxed in the upbringing of their children and so the value that they teach their children is different.

 Yet this kind of approval has nothing to do with how you are as a person. What makes a person is whether they live by their own value system. As long as you live by your own value system you are happy when you neglect your own values than you are unhappy. Therefore do not seek the approval of others as they may not share your own values.

How can I start to learn how to love myself?

Loving yourself starts by becoming aware of what goes on in your mind. How do you talk to yourself? Do you speak to yourself in a harsh tone of voice? Do you condemn yourself? Just simply become aware and then don´t judge, just allow it to be there and once you have listened to yourself start changing it to a more loving way of speaking.