How To Be Yourself
Do you know how to be yourself? What I have learned, after many years of struggle, is that it is quite simple. It is simple but it takes discipline and practice.
I grew up both confused by what “just be yourself,” meant exactly and frustrated at my inability to “just” be myself.
It didn’t help too much that I was encouraged to second-guess my worth and to always look outside of myself for answers.
After years of trying to figure it out and feeling like I was failing at it, I finally figured out what it means to me and how to practice it in ways that allow me to be my best self.
This post is about learning how we can be ourselves so that life can be more rewarding and meaningful.
How to Be Yourself
What a life of not being yourself is like
- emotional imbalance
- feeling like a fake
- unsure of oneself
- insecurity
- lack of self-esteem
- low self-confidence
- insufficient self-efficacy
- unsatisfied life
- difficult to meaningfully succeed
- always other-directed
- receive less than what one wants in life
- untrustworthy by you and by others
- unattractive to good people and good things
- cannot feel good enough
- do not feel one is enough
When you don’t know how to be yourself, you cannot live your best life because you too often will be led to do what you don’t necessarily want with your life. You likely will miss out on the very things that could make your heart sing.
This is a life of putting up with less than you want not getting to taste what your life truly can be.
What your life is like when you are being yourself
- you feel authentic
- you feel attractive
- you feel self-confident
- your life feels easier
- you are empowered
- self-trust
- people trust you
- life feels comfortable
- have trust to be authentically courageous
- able to make things happen that you want
The most authentic confidence comes from being yourself. It lets you and others know that you are just who you are. There does not need to be any apologies for being you and you can allow yourself and others to enjoy who you are without apprehension of any kind. You cause no harm to yourself and others and you most often add to the lives of everyone with little effort.
You are in your most natural state of being.
How to learn to be yourself
- stop acting on your need for approval
- become mindful of what you want from yourself
- actively practice your values and ethics
- think about the impact that you want to make in the world and take steps that are in alignment with those things
- practice deep self-compassion to forgive your mistakes (past, present, and future)
Allen Watts has said, “There is no self.” I really love that phrase because that means that we can be in a fluid creative mode ourselves. That means that we can stop worrying about “who” we are and take action on what we want to do.
We have “no self” but we have more power than we know to participate in our ever-moving world.
What it comes down to is that we live every moment as loving human beings, compassionate human beings, and action-taking fearless beings.
That means that we can stop worrying about “who” we are and live our lives actively creating and loving. We are all a part of one another, a bee to a beautiful hive, as Marcus Aurelius would tell us.
Who we are is about simply just living by our ethics and morals, helping one another, and making our world better than we found it.
That is all. And that is a lot.
This post was about learning to be yourself so that you can live your best life.
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