I’m not a fan of spoonfeeding people information, so let’s switch roles for a moment. Before I start sharing my thoughts on how to be authentic, explore what makes sense for you. Think for yourself. How would you define authenticity? What does being authentic mean to you? If you want to return to your authenticity, it will be much easier once you’ve clearly defined it. Otherwise, you might end up following someone else’s ideas and definitions.
For me, authenticity is a decision not to abandon myself. It’s a decision to speak my truth, no matter who I’m with. To me, authenticity looks like taking everyone else off an imaginary pedestal and prioritizing how I feel, what I think, and who I am. It’s not selfish. If I want to be me, it’s required.
In a world where trends are multiplying by the minute, it’s time to choose authenticity. It’s time to stop outsourcing our opinions, decisions, who we choose to be, and how we choose to live. In a world where AI is trying to take away our power of thought and make us followers instead of leaders, it’s time to use our minds more than ever. Use your mind to question, think for yourself, and understand who you are so that you can create a life that feels like yours instead of following someone else’s template.
Let’s talk about how to be authentic and how to keep your personality in a world that would much rather have you follow its expectations and unwritten rules than question and go against them.
How to Be Authentic In a World That Wants Everyone to Be the Same
1) What are your authenticity blockers?
If you feel like, over the years, you’ve drifted away from what feels like you, examine the root cause. What’s blocking you from being yourself? What’s that barrier between how you currently live and the definition of authenticity you created while reading the introduction? What is standing in the way?
This can range from the more obvious hindrances, such as:
a) you have to look a specific way at work which is different from how you genuinelly would like to look (e.g. you have to wear a certain type of makeup, postpone your plan to dye your hair blue, cover your tattoos, put your desire to get a septum piercing on hold, wear blazers and clothes that rid you of your personality and make an entire office building look like sardines in a can)
b) your new situationship tells you he prefers it when you don’t wear makeup, so you decide to “tone it down” for him. Or the opposite: he says he prefers it when women have a full face of makeup, so you obey.
… to the ones running the show from the background, such as:
c) social media and marketing that puts certain expectations on what women should look like (trendy nails, lip fillers, lash lifts, fully waxed everything, botox, long tamed hair…)
d) fear of being misunderstood, disagreed with, judged, gossiped about, rejected, or ridiculed
What’s that moment where you convince yourself it’s better not to be yourself? What are you prioritizing in that moment? What would you do differently if you made it your mission in life to be as much yourself as you can be?
Would you look for another job? One where the employer cares more about how you do your job than how your nails look or what color your hair is. Would you keep wearing the same amount of makeup and ditch that guy who wants you to fit his idea of you, rather than accept you for who you are?
Identify those specific moments where you feel as though you’re moving away from yourself and closer to someone’s expectation or idea of who you should be. Then, think about what you would do differently if you detached your identity from those blockers. What would you do today if you stopped performing for approval? What would it look like to be a full version of yourself? You’re not here to change yourself to fit in. You’re here to allow yourself to be yourself.
Read next:
How to Know If You Have Outgrown Who You Used to Be
How to Set Goals When You Don’t Know What You Want
2) If you were famous, what would the headlines say is embarrassing about you?
“And if you want to do anything in your life, there comes a point where you’re done with explaining and defending yourself and your decisions. You let people think whatever they need to think, and you focus on your part of the equation. You focus on who you want to be and what you want to do.”
― Ivana Skoric, She’s Intense
I recently saw a post on social media with a big bold headline saying how Margot Robbie was at a Slipknot concert and how, I quote, “it’s not embarrassing to be a metalhead.” What? Who even said it was? Why would you even present it as an option where being a metalhead could be embarrassing? When celebrities go to a Taylor Swift or Sabrina Carpenter concert, you never see a caption saying “That’s not embarrassing.” It’s normalized and expected to listen to the most popular artists, so it’s easy to fit in if you listen to those. But somehow listening to metal music could be embarrassing, which is why there’s a need to end the headline with, “You might listen to metal, but hey, don’t you worry, it’s not embarrassing.” (By the way, yes. I’m a Slipknot fan myself.)
Think about it for yourself. When it comes to your style, interests, or the way you choose to live, what would be the headline that would end with affirming “(even though a lot of people might think it is) it’s not embarrassing”? If you were famous, what would people say is embarrassing about you? In what ways are you different from what’s expected to the point where some would say it’s embarrassing?
Is it that you’re single? Childfree? Don’t wear makeup? Don’t shave your legs? Have the same style you did when you were 15 instead of “dressing your age”? What would be your “embarrassing”? Go there. Go fully inward. Return to yourself instead of moving further away from yourself and closer to someone else’s idea of who you should be. If it makes you feel like yourself, that’s your authenticity.
Imagine if Margot cared about that post and forced herself to stop listening to Slipknot because 300 people in the comments judged and attacked her for not being ladylike and for not listening to sweet, trendy music that would better fit the image they created of her. Imagine if she pressured herself to change to be more acceptable to others. That’s exactly the point where we can lose our power and outsource our identity to others.
If you were famous, what would 300 people in the comments of your post say is weird or embarrassing? Now, hear me out. What if you let those people think you’re embarrassing so that you can live your life as your full self? The alternative is to prioritize other people’s opinions and the pressure to be liked, and, as a result, hold yourself back from being who you want to be and doing what you want to do. Allow people to think whatever they need to think, so that you can be whoever you want to be.
Don’t let society, your parents, or boyfriends convince you to silence the identity you came here to express. If there were no such thing as “embarrassing”, what would you do? Who would you be? What choices would you start making? If there were no one to judge, misunderstand, and disagree with you, what would you do? Who would you be? Go directly into that. You have only this one life; you don’t have time to perform, hoping to be liked and accepted. Might as well go all in on being yourself and choosing what makes you happy(er).
Read next:
20 Empowering Pieces of Life Advice for Women in Their 20s
Dealing with Negative Comments: How to Protect Your Energy and Stay True to Yourself
3) Taking control of your identity.
“If you don’t determine who you are and stand firm in your identity, you will attach your identity to the opinions of others. You’ll believe others when they tell you who they think you are and who you should be. If they say you’re selfish, you’ll believe them. If they say you don’t have what it takes to succeed, you’ll believe them. You will conform to the pressure to put your life on hold for someone else, stay quiet, nice, and agreeable instead of leading yourself with questions such as, “What feels authentic to me? Who do I want to be?”
― Ivana Skoric, She’s Intense
Following trends means that whoever has more followers than you gets to make your decisions. Whoever has more followers gets to say what’s cool, and the rest of us are here to follow. One of the issues with following trends is that the moment you check one off your list, another pops up. You get your nails done the way one celebrity did, and a week later, another celebrity pops up on your feed with a different shape and color, so now the ones you got are already outdated. You thought subtle, minimalist nails were in, and now it seems bold and vibrant are in. The bigger issue with following trends is that you’re never in charge. You’re just following what others are doing.
Following trends doesn’t make you trendy. It constantly makes you feel outdated because trends change by the minute. First, you see Hailey Bieber’s slicked-back bun, then Sabrina Carpenter does curtain bangs, then fictional Emily Cooper gets a bob haircut, and so on and so forth. And no matter what you do, you always feel behind. You never feel satisfied and at peace because the goalposts keep moving.
Wanting to be attractive to and desired by men means that they get to decide how you look and behave. If your new situationship likes women who can cook, who wear dresses, and have smooth legs… well, that’s who you’ll try to be. If your next boyfriend prefers it when you have a French manicure, when you don’t watch reality shows because he thinks they’re stupid, and when you wear flowery perfumes, that’s who you’ll be.
But the only sustainable way to live is to center your decisions around what feels like you. Relying on what others want from you isn’t sustainable in the long term because, as I said about following trends, the goalposts keep moving without you having a say. If you have no idea what feels like you, it’s because your authenticity got buried beneath society’s expectations, the plans your parents had for your life, and the latest trends. You haven’t lost yourself or what makes you you. It’s still there. It was always within.
Now it’s time to take an imaginary shovel and remove the dirt and gunk that has accumulated in the form of other people’s opinions, expectations, and pressure. It was never yours to absorb it. Taking control of your identity means coming back to questions such as:
– Does this feel like me? What feels most like me in this moment?
– Do I want this? What do I want?
– If I were a leader of my life, what decision would I make right now?
Dig as far as you need until you get your answers.
If you liked this post and want further guidance on how to create your own path in life, no matter what other people say, She’s Intense is for you. In this book, I offer insights and questions for reflection to help you return to yourself, detach from other people’s expectations, and take control of your life. Get She’s Intense on Amazon.
Until the next time,
Ivana
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