Authenticity is often used as an excuse to keep doing what feels comfortable, with a painful consequence of standing still. I personally find it important to leave my comfort zone if this purposefully fits within my path of personal growth.
In this section “Grow along in a fast-changing world” I would like to share my experience and I want to inspire people to invest time in their growth path, both on a personal and professional level.
Authenticity to me means trying to express myself and act in accordance with who I am as a person and what I stand for
All my life I have attached great importance to authenticity in my dealings with people. Authenticity to me means trying to express myself and act in accordance with who I am as a person and what I stand for. I say open my mind, I share my feelings, I try to convince people of the importance of principles and values and norms.
By placing such a high value on authenticity, I always run the risk of being rejected for going against the grain. This does not outweigh the lasting relationships I have today with people who are open and love my genuine personality. They value me and see my opinion as an asset, even if they may even think differently. With those people I can be myself and I feel understood.
Finding the balance between wanting to appear authentic and taking into account the views of the people around me is an important working point on my path of personal growth.
It happens that people become averse to me when I have a different opinion and share it too harshly and directly. In doing so, I forget to take sufficient account of the people around me and their values and opinions or the situation in which they find themselves. This happens especially when I am disappointed and feel that I or others have been treated unfairly.
Finding the balance between wanting to appear authentic and taking into account the views of the people around me is an important working point on my path of personal growth. I intend to be much more careful, depending on the situation, about how I express my opinion or how I act with people who hold different values or welcome the same values but apply them through completely different standards. In this way I will try to avoid insulting someone and offending someone by my use of language.
Authenticity is often used as an excuse to keep doing what feels comfortable, with a painful consequence of standing still.
Authenticity is often used as an excuse to keep doing what feels comfortable, with a painful consequence of standing still. On my path of personal growth, I find it necessary to leave my comfort zone. I consciously only do that if this is in accordance with my authenticity that I allow to evolve along my growth path. That is why I think it is important to regularly adjust my principles, values and standards and to continue to develop my personality through new insights that I have acquired. I want to recognize my own mistakes and learn from them by becoming a better version of myself.
But despite that change, I want to remain authentic. This is not easy for some people around me because they have an image of me from the past that they stubbornly hold onto. It will continue to be a challenge for me to deal with those people and avoid conflict even though I make an effort and consider the way I express myself.
What does authenticity mean to you and how important do you think this is?
Without obligation, I list a few questions for inspiration:
- Do you think authenticity is important and what makes you authentic?
- Can you always be yourself? Or have you already experienced that your authenticity suffered under the circumstances. For example, through social pressure or through social media to pretend to be 'different'?
- Do you surround yourself in real life or online with people who are not authentic? And does this gnaw at your self-confidence and make you feel unjustly inferior?
- Do you regularly reflect on yourself to recognize your own mistakes and learn from them in order to become a better version of yourself? And after that, do you remain authentic and express yourself and act in accordance with the new insights about yourself?
- Do you use your 'authenticity' to not get out of your comfort zone? Do you have the feeling that this way you can get enough out of your talents, do what suits you and what makes you happy?