“I just want to be me.” “I dont want to be anyone else or be ‘anything’, I just want to be me.” Have you said these words before? Do you have this deep desire to live a life that’s true to you? In this post, I share tips that can help you start to feel more comfortable with embracing your authenticity.
Embracing your authenticity and living a life that’s true to you requires courage. And, your courage is strengthened by use.
“I just want to be me.”
“I dont want to be like anyone else, I just want to be me.”
This is something I used to say when I was younger. I had this strong desire to just be me. But, it felt difficult sometimes as it felt very uncomfortable to be seen and heard as my authentic self. There was a little girl inside of me that just wanted to be loved for who she was. However, I uncomfortably learnt- how could I let others love me for who I was, if I didn’t love myself for who I was?
I now practise unconditionally loving who I am, owning who I am, and I now feel more comfortable to just be me and to keep on being me. Additionally, I’m continuing to lean more into living the life that’s true to me. That makes me feel happy and fulfilled with the people I love.
I hope that by reading this post, it inspires and encourages you to embrace your authenticity and continue living a life that’s true to you. And, to just keep on being you.
Not everyone will like and understand you.
The ones who love, support and accept you as you are, will.
As I would tell my friends, just by you being you, you teach and inspire others so much! For example, some of my best friends have taught and inspired me to express my true feelings more and to live more joyously, etc.
Empowering Mindset Reminder: I am loved for who I am.
In this post, you will learn how to go from feeling uncomfortable with embracing your authenticity to feeling more comfortable with embracing your authenticity.
These are some of the things I have practised and am still practising to feel more comfortable with embracing my authenticity and living a life that’s true to me.
1. Enhance your self-awareness
Enhancing your self-awareness is a great tool to help you feel more comfortable in embracing your authenticity. Self-awareness is about cultivating more conscious knowledge and understanding about yourself, your thoughts, values, emotions, desires, beliefs, motivations, and opinions.
Increasing your self-awareness can lead you to feel more comfortable with embracing your authenticity as you are more aware and understanding of yourself and your strengths & weaknesses. Having a good understanding and acknowledgement of who you are/ your authentic self is a step that can allow you to embrace your authenticity more.
Enhancing your self-awareness is a great step to getting to know more about your authenticity and what makes you YOU.
You can increase your self-awareness through tools such as mindfulness, stillness & rest, journaling out your thoughts and feelings, regularly writing down your goals, desires and dreams, self-reflection, practising being the observer of your thoughts and feelings and going on solo walks.
Cultivating self-awareness does not have to be so serious. You can cultivate more self-awareness simply through a conversation with a friend and through living your life (life experience) + travelling! If you look at it backwards, it’s about having awareness of your self.
2. Get to know yourself
Get to know yourself. There are so many ways that you can get to know yourself.
Firstly, you can get to know yourself more by spending time with yourself. When you spend time with yourself you can use this time to cultivate a true friendship with yourself. You can read more about how embracing solitude has been a life-changing lesson for me on my 24 Life-Changing Lessons That I’ve Learnt as a 24-year-old Blog post.
What do you like? What do you not like? By really spending time with yourself, you can allow yourself to distinguish what is true for you and the things that you may have adopted from others that don’t ring true for you anymore.
In my late teens and early 20’s I spent years single and intentionally getting to know myself. I got to explore the world and explore self-discovery. I got to know and cultivate more understanding about what I believe and what I want to believe about myself, humans and the world.
Thus, focusing on getting to know yourself can help you uncover what’s true for you and what you desire to be true for you. For example, in your money mindset beliefs etc.
Some other examples of ways that you can get to know yourself and embrace your authenticity are through exploring your interests, passions, journalling, self-reflection, self-discovery, exploring & facing your fears, trying new things and things you’ve never done before. Here are 3 Self Discovery Journaling Prompts to help you get to know yourself better.
You know you best.
3. Commit to self-growth
Are you committed to your growth? Embracing your authenticity requires a commitment to growth. Embracing your authenticity and living a life that’s true to you requires you to show up more honestly. Honestly for yourself first and foremost.
Your authenticity one day may look like staying home and having a nothing day. Your authenticity tomorrow may look like putting in the effort towards your dreams & goals. The next day your authenticity may look like going on a spontaneous adventure.
Authenticity can look like living a life that’s true to you, your way and at your own pace.
Check out my post the Top 5 Benefits of Living Courageously if you would like more motivation to embrace your courage to live a life that’s true to you.
As you get to discover and learn more about yourself and the life that’s true to you, there may be limiting beliefs, patterns, mindsets, and ‘shoulds’ from yourself and ‘shoulds’ from others that no longer serve you. To shift through these, as it’s not always comfortable, requires growth. Growth in the change, the unknown, the uncertain, the unfamiliar and the discomfort.
Thus, your commitment to growth is one thing that can help you feel more comfortable with embracing your authenticity.
4. Develop unconditional love for yourself
Getting to know and develop unconditional love for your beautiful parts, the ‘ugly’, the ‘lovable’ and the ‘not so loveable’ parts, is a significant way to help you become more comfortable with your authenticity.
It’s okay to embrace/accept polarity.
When you develop unconditional love for yourself and continue to build on this relationship with yourself, it can be a strong foundation for you to embrace your authenticity and continue to live a life that’s true to you.
Because you love who YOU are. You love what you’re doing.
Focus more on creating and being a version of you that you love rather than what other people think.
If you’re thinking, how could I love a part of myself that I don’t like or that I want to change?
Rarely does change and sustainable self-improvement come from hating parts of ourselves into change. Giving yourself the compassion, understanding and unconditional love is saying to yourself, “I am loveable as I am.”
Self-Empowerment Reminder: “I can make positive changes and improve through loving myself. I am enough.”
5. Surround yourself with people who support, accept and celebrate you for who you are
Surround yourself with your people. The ones who support and celebrate your uniqueness. The ones that you feel safe to be you around.
6. Live in alignment with your values
Living in alignment with your values can help you feel more comfortable with embracing your authenticity. Aligning your actions with your values helps you cultivate more integrity and confidence.
Knowing and owning that you are living in alignment with your values creates more confidence and self-trust when it comes to embracing your authenticity. As, your values are aligned with a big part of who you are as a person.
Additionally, living in alignment with your values helps you have more clarity in your everyday decisions and bigger life decisions. I’ve learnt that living in alignment with my values adds to my happiness, peace and fulfilment majorly.
Your values can help you define what is important to you in life. Living in alignment with your values can be a big part of feeling more comfortable with embracing your authenticity and living a life that’s true to you.
Here are some Journal Prompts to help you gain clarity on some of your personal values:
- What truly matters to you and what feels most meaningful to you?
- What do you love? What do you love to do?
- How do you like to treat others? How do you like to be treated?
- What would you like to give and contribute to others and the world?
- What makes you happy?
- What makes you feel fulfilled?
7. Learn to stand by you
Learning to stand by you is important when you desire to live a life that’s true to you and embrace your authenticity. As they say, “If you don’t believe in yourself, who will?”
At the end of the day, you are the one that is with you 24/7. So, learning to have your back and stand by you is a way that you can feel more empowered to embrace your authenticity.
You can feel more comfortable embracing your authenticity because you have your support, validation and permission to live the life that’s true to you.
Reminder: Living the life that’s true to you doesn’t always have to be something that’s big, bold and vivacious.
Many times we wait for someone or something outside of us to validate, support and give us permission to go after our dreams and live the life that’s true to us.
Learn to be with you through the hard times, the good times and to stand by you.
Ways that you can learn to stand by you and have your back include cultivating all of the points stated on this Blog post:
- Enhance your self-awareness
- Get to know yourself
- Surrounding yourself with people who support, accept and celebrate you for who you are
- Committing to growth
- Developing unconditional love and compassion for yourself
- Living in alignment with your values
By continuously practising the above points, you can set yourself up for a more confident and strong foundation to stand by you and believe in yourself.
I’ve learnt that it’s a risk to embrace your authenticity and live a life that’s true to you. But, I’ve also learnt that it’s a risk that I’m courageously willing to take.
As always, thank you for being here. 💚
What are your best tips for feeling more comfortable to embrace your authenticity? Share them with the Living Her Way community in the comments section below.
If you have any questions, kind comments or blog post requests, please comment them below or you can contact me here.
Author: Lana
Welcome! Lana is the founder of Living Her Way. She's passionate about all things Travel and Self-Empowerment. Lana's mission is to inspire you to live a more happy and fulfilling life your way each day.
What an inspiring article! I have picked some important practical tips for self-improvement.
When I struggled to embrace my true self, I realized that authenticity isn’t about conforming to societal norms but rather about honoring your unique traits and values. I took a lot of time doing self-reflection to understand what made me genuinely happy and fulfilled and what truly matters.
Thanks for sharing this post!
Great advice for all ages! Thank you!!
Loved the post and the pointers.. thanks 😊
Thank you for this empowering post! Embracing authenticity is such a transformative journey, and your words resonate deeply. Your insights and encouragement inspire me to embrace my true self unapologetically. Here’s to celebrating our uniqueness and living authentically every day! 🌟
Thanks for the inspiration. I enjoyed reading your article.
It was fun reading about your journey to discovering your true authenticity. Thanks for sharing!
Being yourself and living life on your terms is a wonderful thing and yet, many reasons and circumstances prevent people from embracing it fully. Thanks for shedding light on this important topic!
Seriously the best thing you can do is fall in love with yourself. One of the best journeys of my life was to discover who I am and fall in love with her.
“I just want to be me.“ a true and powerful statement!
Finding your people really helps! Authenticity does not come easy. But loving yourself and surrounding yourself with people who love you makes it easier! Great post 🙂
What an inspiring post, living your on truth is the best way. Thanks for sharing
Great post! An important reminder that staying true to yourself doesn’t always have to be big and bold, it just needs to be you!
I love a good self-improvement post! Thanks for sharing this along with some practices I can replicate 😀
Great post, I truly love the part of getting to know yourself. For years I was a people pleaser and while it’s so good to love and care for others, it’s best when it comes from a place of authenticity and genuineness. Knowing myself has not only allowed me to self love myself and love people better. Great read, thanks!
Such great advice Lana! So many good points, sharing this with a few friends and family members who could also benefit from this post. Thank you!
I find the older I get the harder it is to know who I really am. This article is very inspiring! Thanks for sharing. 💕
Lana, your post really struck a chord with me. The journey you described towards embracing authenticity resonates deeply. Your vulnerability in sharing your own experiences and struggles is truly inspiring. I’ve found myself nodding along as I read through your insightful tips for feeling more comfortable in one’s own skin. Your emphasis on self-awareness, self-love, and surrounding ourselves with supportive individuals is both empowering and reassuring. Thank you for creating such a welcoming space for reflection and growth. Your words are a beacon of encouragement for those of us navigating our own paths towards authenticity.
“Just by you being you, you teach and inspire others so much!” Love your quote and I fully agree! Really enjoyed this post, very inspirational.