Self-Awareness & Inauthentic Living

Authentic Success -  "Achieving results, goals or a lifestyle that represents who you truly are" 

To start our journey to Authentic Success I would like to share some fundamental truths:

• Individually, we are responsible for our own lives.
• We cannot change anything we are not consciously aware of.
• Our past does not have to equal our future. 
• We will always live in the present, the here and now.
• Constant change is certain. We are constantly changing as an individual as the world is changing around us.
• We may not always be able to control what has happened or happens to us, but we can always control how we respond. 
• Everyone's journey through life is different and unique to them.

I would like to focus on the topic of Self-Awareness as I believe it is the starting point for all change (both good and bad). 

A particularly uncomfortable truth is that we all have parts to us that we are not happy with, that we wish to change or remove. There are parts of us that we are consciously aware of and think about a lot, but there are also parts of us that we are completely oblivious to. A few examples could be suppressed memories from childhood, poor habits, negative patterns of thinking or a limited sense of self. 

My objective for this blog post is to raise awareness of the different factors and areas that may cause Inauthentic Living. By that I mean:

"Living a life in the present that does not represent who you truly are"

Before I dive into these factors I would like to make the following explicitly clear. These factors cannot be used as reasons or justifications as to why you are not happy or living the life you want right now. If you do that you may end up bitter and resentful with no motivation to change.

Regardless of what has happened, we are responsible for our circumstances and our emotions. Personal change is predicated on personal accountability. It requires a change of mindset from the victim to the hero/heroine of our individual story.

Inauthentic Living Factors:

 1.  External pressure & influence

We will always experience external pressure and influence. It is a fact of life.

Often the pressure and influence can be positive and insignificant such as a friend inviting you out for dinner or a drink. It could be your partner or friend asking for a favour. Provided you want to do these things or favours then this is acceptable as it is authentic to you. 

It becomes inauthentic when you feel you must do something for someone else otherwise there will be consequences. When we use the word "must" or "need" we imply that we have given up our free choice in the situation. Being constrained in this way can cause a build-up of stress. No one likes to do things they are told or forced to do against their will or things they do not enjoy doing. This is inauthentic.

There is external pressure & influence in the form of written rules and laws. For the most part, we tend to accept these without question. Every sport has rules and every society has laws that are meant to ensure a peaceful and cooperative society. Without rules, there would be anarchy. However, there are also laws or rules that are not reflective of the changing society we live in and in some cases can be oppressive to certain groups of people. This causes inauthenticity as these marginalised people cannot live life or express themselves in the way they want to. 

There are also external pressure & influence in the form of unwritten rules and expectations about how a person should behave in society given their age, status, etc. These come in the form of "shoulds" such as everyone should be educated, everyone should eventually be in a relationship, everyone should get married, everyone should buy a home, everyone should have a family. Nowhere is this explicitly stated but we feel this is the case because everyone else seems to be doing this. There is pressure to conform which creates internal conflict and inauthenticity. In these cases, people may give up part of who they are to "fit in" with the majority. 

2. Internal pressure & influence

This is the lesser-known and arguably the more impactful cause of inauthentic living. On the surface, this appears counter-intuitive because why would anyone knowingly create an inauthentic life for themselves? 

The answer is that consciously no one would. No one would say I want to live a life where I am constantly stressed, anxious, fearful, upset, afraid, angry, bitter, depressed and worried.

Well, why do so many constantly experience these emotions? It is because these emotions are being generated at a subconscious or unconscious level without us being aware of it. You hear it from people who say "I can't help how I feel".

To be clear, all emotions are healthy and natural. If you experience a loss, it is natural to be sad and grieve. If your friend or partner is attacked, it is natural to be angry. However, emotions are short-lived. If someone is constantly experiencing emotions that they don't want then it becomes inauthentic to them. 

Let me shed some light on potential causes for these underlying emotions:

a. Human Drivers

From an evolutionary stand-point the purpose of our lives is to survive and produce the next generation. Therefore the following drives are innate, which is to say they are there from birth, passed from one generation to the next. They do not require any trigger or stimulus to activate them. The extent to which they influence our lives will vary from person to person and they also will vary from male to female based on genetics and the differences in the way each of our brains is wired. 

Security. While we may be top of the food chain now, we weren't always. Therefore we have an in-built drive to be vigilant and constantly search for potential danger. This includes our FFF (fight, flight, freeze) response. We weren't taught this, it is instinctive. 

Territory. Our ancestors were territorial and so are we. We are compelled to have and own our own space. If our neighbours try to take our land or someone at work tries to claim part of our job role for their own chances are we would react defensively. 

Food/Drink. An obvious one. We need food and water to survive. The drive will compel us to eat and drink as much as we can because does not know when the next meal will be. However, our rational side knows the health benefits of balancing food and exercise. Therefore it can be a tough battle, especially when we are tired!

Sex. Another obvious one. If we do not have sex our species would die out. That is why sex is so pleasurable and compels people to act in differing ways.

Parental Instinct. A powerful driver. In the majority of cases, parents would do anything they could to defend their children and give them the best possible upbringing. If this instinct was not there then the chances of the newborn surviving would be slim. 

Group/Acceptance. In the days of our early ancestors if a person was not part of a group or tribe their chances of survival were slim at best. Therefore it was important to their survival that they were an integral part of the group either as a leader or someone that could be relied on. Circumstances have changed now as we can survive on our own, but that need to be part of a group is still a big driver, especially during our teenage/young adult years. 

Dominance. Historically those that dominated had access to resources, power and mates. They significantly increased their chances for survival and having offspring. Today that is not necessarily the case, but it does not mean that driver is still there. The majority still have a tendency to compare and size each other up and in any group there will always be those who lead and have the most influence. 

Inquisitiveness. Without inquisitiveness, there would be no compelling reason to learn something new or to push boundaries. Chances are the world would be a very different place without it. We see inquisitiveness today in a number of different forms whether that is in research, learning and development or at a more basic level in gossip and wanting to learn about other people's lives. 

These human drives will always be part of us and cannot be removed. If logically we decide to go against a core human drive because that is not who we are, then we have the option to learn how to manage those compulsions and accompanying thoughts and emotions. This is critical otherwise we will have a drive that is compelling us to live an inauthentic life.  

To be clear, these drives are not who we are. They are something we are born with. It is as if we have been dealt a hand of cards as we entered the world and our job is to learn how to use them to our best advantage. Note that all these drives can be used in a positive and powerful way if we decide to harness them. 

b. Underlying core beliefs and values. 

Our beliefs, values and unwritten rules provide us with a powerful resource that we use to navigate through life. If we encounter a situation then typically we will refer to these beliefs, values and unwritten rules sub-consciously and these inform us of which action to take. 

Beliefs are things we know to be true, values are things we feel are important to us and unwritten rules are guides we created based on past experiences (i.e do not put your hand on a hot hob).

In terms of our cognitive development, our ability to think rationally starts between the ages of 7 and 11 and continues through our teenage years into adulthood. This means that for roughly a decade of our life we had no way of filtering the advice, guidance and information that was provided to us from our parents, guardians, teachers, etc. We blindly accepted this input and from that, we created our earliest beliefs about the world, others and ourselves. 

I do not want to be critical of parents and teachers here, because on the whole I believe they are doing the best they can with the information they have available to them. It just so happens that there is a chance that some of these early beliefs and values instilled into you as a child may not accurately reflect the beliefs and values you want to have as an adult and therefore you have internal conflict. Who you are now is being driven by a younger version of you.

c. Identity & Self-worth

This could fall into the category of core beliefs but I decided to split it out. 

Our identity and self-worth are generated from a set of core beliefs about who we are as individuals. This would be equivalent to writing a list about yourself starting with the words "I am...".

Our identity is shaped over the course of our life as we create and update these core beliefs. One of the most powerful forces in nature is our need to act consistently with how we define ourselves. If we believe we are quiet, we will not be loud. If we believe we are introverted, we will want to spend more time by ourselves than surrounded by other people. If we believe we are anxious people, we will spend a lot of time worrying. 

While it's true that these beliefs define us, it may not be the case that they represent who we truly are. After all, these beliefs could have been created during childhood or during our teenage years when we have limited awareness and understanding of who we are. 

Therefore if we want to be a positive person (as an example) then that is who we truly are. It then becomes a case of tackling the inauthentic limiting beliefs that are now constraining us from being positive. 

Symptoms of Inauthentic Living

I would like to end this blog post by sharing some common symptoms of inauthentic living. If you are experiencing any of these then I encourage you to go back over the factors and see which one may be triggering this.

• Not being able to be yourself in certain groups or situations.
• Feeling drained from having to be someone else to "fit in".Constantly facing internal conflict. Part of you is saying one thing, the other part is saying the opposite. 
• Inability to say what you are thinking or express how you are truly feeling.
• Feeling like something is missing.
• Feeling stuck and unable to make progress.
• Languishing without a clear direction in life. 
• Constantly feeling pressure to say yes to everyone, including family. 
• Regularly experiencing stress, fatigue and burnout at work. 
• Feeling guilty or envious when comparing yourself to others.
• Inability to achieve your goals or dreams. 
• Feeling of worthliness "I am not good or worthy enough". 
• Confusion over who you truly are. 
• Fear of asking people for favours or what you really want. 

This list is by no means exhaustive but hopefully it will give you some idea about whether there are areas in your life to reflect on. 

I am also here to help. I am currently providing Authentic Success coaching to tackle these symptoms and help people live a life that is true to who they really are. 

For more information visit: https://www.bgblueprint.com/coaching