I'm looking for book suggestions that deal with stopping reliance on validation and starting to focus more on emotional and/or psychological growth and empowerment.

I've recently came to the conclusion that my hunger for validation comes not from getting too little of it, but too much. And that my reliance on getting validated by other is hampering my relationships and my improvement. I'm seeking information and books that deal with such issues.

A little bit more about the paradox of validation: From my knowledge, when a person gets too little validation, they will hunger for it, they will lack the energy and power to make lasting changes in their lives and will fail in improving themselves, because the foundation of "I'm a good person, that can do stuff" is lacking.

However, if you receive too much validation, you get too much of it, it will mutate into the other extreme, where you become so reliant on constant validation that you no longer can give any energy to improvement, because you need to make sure you receive a non-stopping stream of validation that you're so used to getting.

For a long time I felt hunger to be accepted by other people and had mistakenly attributed it to not receiving enough of validation. But getting more and more validation did not seem to make me feel better, only worse. So now, instead of focusing on getting more validation, I want to focus on my flawed reliance on it. I want to no longer care and need validation so much that it restricts my ability to grow and improve.

I would be greatly thankful if you could post any books or other information that you deem suitable for such a goal. As I understand I'm most likely not the only one with such an issue, there should be many more who would find value in such recommendations.