How you can be your authentic self

It’s been nearly a year since I started my unmasking journey and show my authentic self to the world. During this time, I have definitely learnt a lot on things that can be done to be more authentic. In this blog post, I will give some things to think about when it comes to being your authentic self.

Note: These tips are based on my lived experiences and shouldn’t be taken as professional advice

Build authentic relationships

Personally, I believe that having authentic relationships is really important, and I have found that to have helped my unmasking journey significantly. It goes without saying that if you bring your authentic self to the world, then the relationships and interactions that you have with others should be consistent with that. For me, the authentic relationships that I have that add value to my life are the ones where I have the opportunity and freedom to show a more authentic version of myself. This naturally helps me with bringing my authentic self to the world. I wrote a blog on the authentic relationships that can be found here, which talks about authentic relationships in more detail.

Distance yourself from people that don’t add value to your life

This was something that I realised very quickly after starting my unmasking journey. One thing that I strongly believe is that having a strong support system is essential. In my opinion, a strong support system should include people that are adding value to your life. People that aren’t adding value to your life doesn’t strengthen your support system, and if anything only weakens your support system. Prior to my unmasking journey, I was spending a lot of time and energy on people that weren’t adding much value to my life. Not only was it harder to be my authentic self around people that weren’t adding value, I was also not spending enough time and energy around people that were adding value to my life. It is a lot easier to be your authentic self around people that add value to your life. In order to get to that position, you need to be able to make tough decisions in identifying people that aren’t adding value to your life, and distancing yourself from them.

Give your views and opinions on things, rather than blindly agreeing with everything

This is something that doesn’t get talked about much when it comes to being your authentic self. When I was masking in the past, a lot of what that involved was blindly agreeing with what people said. This was because it felt easier to blindly agree with what someone else says, rather than risk conflict by expressing my own views which may disagree with that person. However, this meant that I was rarely expressing my views and opinions on things, which didn’t help me. The unmasking journey made me fully appreciate the fact that people want to hear my views and opinions, even if they may not initially agree with them. For example, in the second paragraph I talked about how it’s important to think about what works best for you. People want to hear your views and opinions on the things what work best for you so that they can support you in the best way. It is easy to just blindly agree on how someone else wants things done, even if that isn’t what works best for you, but no one benefits by that.

Furthermore, there are lots of ways you can give your views and opinions on things. In the workplace, you can do this by sharing your views on how something can be made more efficient. When it comes to interacting with others, one good way of sharing your views is by challenging other people’s point of view if you don’t agree with it. There are many other ways and examples on where you can give your views and opinions on things, and sharing those to other people helps bring a more authentic version of yourself.

Have honest discussions with yourself

For me, the unmasking journey has involved a lot of reflection and a lot of honest conversations with myself on where I was masking in the past. Whilst a lot of these conversations with myself were difficult to have and exposed uncomfortable truths, they were much needed and helped me work out what I needed to do to be more authentic. Generally, we don’t take enough time to reflect and have honest conversations with ourselves because a lot of us think we are so busy to do so, or because we simply don’t want to admit to ourselves things that are uncomfortable truths. However, having honest conversations with ourselves on where we are not being authentic is the only way we can actually take steps to be more authentic.

Furthermore, when it comes to having these honest conversations with ourselves, one thing that has really helped me is being able to challenge my own views on things. For example, one thing that I challenged myself on is whether my social calendar was actually based on what worked for me, or whether it is to fit in. I talk more about this here.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is clear that being our authentic selves is important but easier said than done. It is key to take steps towards being authentic, as that benefits everyone.