You may think being yourself is actually really easy. But actually, it is not that easy. When was the last time you actually liked something without having to worry about what your friends, co-workers or family members liked? If your answer is “not enough” then you need to understand yourself better. In order to build a social life that is rich and rewarding, you need to learn to authentically be yourself.
Many people try to hide their insecurities in order to impress someone. They try to please other people during social interactions to be more loved, perhaps this kind of thinking came from a deep-rooted childhood negligence from their parents. We shouldn’t feel bad about it, it is normal to be loved by other people because that is the main reason we even do anything. We try to make our parents happy by studying, doing a job, we buy things for friends because we want them to think we are good friends. But the problem arises when we try to go overboard and become someone that we are not.
Usually, this kind of thinking comes when people tell you to dress a certain way, think a certain way, do a degree that you have no passion in—when you listen to other people too much, slowly and surely, you start to forget who you are. As if you are a painting trying to express itself on a rainy day—in a matter of time, the painting will eventually fade away.
In order to express yourself and show who you really are on the inside—you need to be brave. By dropping this fake persona that you have put up to please other people, you can start to slowly break your mask piece by piece and become the authentic person that God created you to be in the first place.
Simple Steps to Be Your Authentic Self
By going through the following steps, you can break your cocoon of inauthenticity and become authentic by carving yourself into a beautiful butterfly that can express itself the way it was meant to. These points will help you to slowly peel away your fake mask and become your true self.
- Try to Understand Yourself
It is no surprise many people in this day and age have lost their true selves. They lost their selves by being their fake in social interactions—they don’t know who they are.
In order to truly be yourself, you need to talk with the person in the mirror. Take a close look at who you really are. You can carve out your real self by asking yourself simple questions like what your favorite food is, what movie you like, what do you look in a person and slowly move onto more serious and complex questions like what you think about the current economy.
Hence, sit down with a cup of tea, write down the things that you like and dislike and in just a matter of time, you will start to peel your fake self and become authentic.
- Become Authentic by Taking Small Steps
When some people go on a journey to discover who they really are, they sometimes forget that they aren’t remembering who they really were—they are actually rediscovering themselves again. Because of this, many people go off course while trying to rediscover themselves.
You need to realize that Rome wasn’t built in a day. You need to be patient and take your time in answering questions about yourself. In order for you to become your authentic self, you need to pick up on things that trigger your inauthentic traits. Once you pick them up one by one, you will eventually find yourself.
Patience is the key to success in order to become who you really are. Once you get this down, you will actually start enjoying social interactions even more than you thought you did.
- Calm Yourself by Being Constructive
Many people who are gunning to be themselves can’t calm themselves when they actually expose their real selves to people. Whenever they try to be “real” they always have this psychological itch that tells them to act a certain way or say a certain phrase to be more likable. Because of this psychological itch, they become anxious and their mind starts to alienate from reality.
That is where constructivism comes in. By looking out for yourself and catching yourself off-guard, you can stop this vicious cycle. Whenever you feel like you need to hide who you really are because you are afraid of being disliked, tell yourself it is okay. Tell yourself that if they don’t like you then that is neither your fault nor is it theirs. Because as human beings, we all have different thoughts, ideas, and preferences—some prefer Pizza over a burger, there is no objectivity here. A flower doesn’t change its scent or color no matter how much it rains or how little sunlight it gets, it just blooms as it is. Become a flower, express who you really are in order to become yourself that you have been neglecting all this time.
