How Can You Be Yourself?
What does it mean to be yourself? We can define it as being naturally spontaneous. This is how we are when we are free from fear, alone or with people we trust a lot.
Fears not only reduce the authenticity of people, but for various reasons make us not live according to who we really are, with our values, skills, outlook on life, etc. There are many factors that can influence you and move you away from that be yourself. These include traditions, lack of self-awareness or just doing things to please others.
It is vital to reflect on whether we are living in our true essence or whether we are creating a character to meet others. We have all, to a greater or lesser extent, lived behind a facade at some point. But happiness and well-being are impossible to feel if you do not live from your true “I” and can be yourself.
We need to know ourselves to live according to our essence. To do that, we need to be clear about these three points.
1. What am I good at? What makes me stand out? What are my best skills? By knowing our strengths, we can direct ourselves toward a path that will bring us prosperity and success.
2. What are my values? What is the most important thing for us in life? What do I want with life? If we live consciously and do not let chance guide our lives, we will live richer because we will choose according to what we actually want.
3. What activates my motivation? What do I enjoy a lot? To help us learn more about what we like, we can look back on our childhood. We can find activities that we have not started again, but that make us very happy when we practice them.
Knowing ourselves better will give us the tools that give us more security, but often the lack of spontaneity is caused by other factors.
1. To want to show an improved version of ourselves. If we want to give the best possible picture of ourselves and worry too much about making others happy, the exact opposite will probably happen. We will show the worst image of ourselves because we can not be natural when we push ourselves to show a better version.
Personal acceptance is the key to improvement. We are unique and irreplaceable, and we all have both good and bad sides. We are the ones who decide. What do I care about the most? To look good or to be happy? Let’s think about it. If we show a good picture, what do we get? Others will have a good impression of us, but we will remain dissatisfied on the inside because we do not bring out our true essence.
We should never try to put on a mask to please others. We should care most about our own well-being, and this is achieved by showing ourselves who we really are.
2. Focus on the impression we will make. If we focus our attention on ourselves, we will feel insecure and unnatural because we will feel worried about what people will think of us.
Spontaneity arises when the focus is not on the image we want to give, but rather when we enjoy what is around us without thinking about whether we are perceived as good or bad.
3. Nervousness. Excitement also destroys naturalness, and can arise from various things. But the most common is to worry about wanting to look good for fear of being dismissed. The priority should instead be to enjoy what is in front of us, and that is when we are most authentic and spontaneous, because in this way we eliminate fear.
Photo by Mr.Theklan and Alba Soler.
