Personal Confidence Mini Series Part 4. Being Authentic
“Don’t hide yourself in regret, just love yourself and you’re set, I’m on the right track baby I was born this way.” Lady Gaga
Welcome to the fourth and final blog in this mini series to help people build more personal confidence, either for themselves, or in business. In this blog we will be looking at the element of authenticity or the art of being yourself, after all it is easier to be yourself than someone you are not.
What is Authenticity?
It is about being genuine, being real and not trying to be something you are not. We see a lot of pictures on social media where people have enhanced their images in a way that is false and lacking authenticity. Strange really as it screams publicly that they themselves lack confidence and are insecure, not sure why they would do that. Authenticity it is quite simple, just be yourself warts and all, as Lady Gaga sang “baby you were born this way”. Of course you need to find out who that is. Here are some pointers.
Be Proud of Who You Are
You are completely unique; you have your own personality, your own voice and your own heart, be proud of it. Never feel you have to live your life being someone you are not. There are always going to be people who know more than you, who are in positions that we aspire to and who you don’t like. Don’t worry about it one bit. If you make an enemy, ok not so good, but on the other hand it demonstrates that you stood for something right?
Just do your best to be the very best version of you. In order to do that you must first be sure to be you and not someone else. Aspiration is one thing, imitation is something else, and an imitation is often a fake.
As someone who was bullied at school, has never been huge achiever and lacked confidence it became clear to me at an early age that who I am is my starting point to being more confident. I pride myself on getting along with most people, and make huge efforts to always see things from a different point of view and to trust my own instincts. If I meet someone who doesn’t like me, well that will bother me to a point, however it isn’t going to change my life especially if I know that I made a big effort to get to understand and know them, that is a part of life.
Being confident can open doors, it can change people’s perception of you and it can give you a sense of something valuable. Self worth. When starting our my business SerialTrainer7 Ltd nearly five years ago, some people tried to affect my approach by saying that it was ‘very brave to take the leap’ and ‘wouldn’t it better and more secure to get a real job’ sorry say that again but slowly ‘a real job’. What the hell is that anyway?
I made some conscious decisions when I started to be professionally confident in my approach. It became a suit of armour. These are seven some of the things I did.
- Have a business mission statement. ‘Training that gets you there faster and leaves you there better’. Now I live it, I am proud to offer the best service and best most relevant training I can to my wonderful clients.
- Always refer to the business as ‘we’ rather than ‘I’ when talking to clients. It gives the impression of something wider and bigger and better, therefore instilling trust.
- Gather testimonials to remind myself of the work I have done to help others. It reinforces the first point. Over 180 on LinkedIn alone.
- Never listen to those who say, “You are a vulgar self promoter”. Yeah ok that is your perception, but I have work and I am doing it for me, not you.
- Think big and tell yourself that the worst something can say is ‘No’ and when they do, remember no doesn’t mean never, just not now.
- Don’t compare yourself to other similar people. They have their own agenda and it that works for them, brilliant. Do what works for you.
- Have personal mission statement. I adopted this and I love it ‘it is not whether you are going to let me, it is how are you going to stop me’.
You see, being authentic is just about being yourself, doing what feels right, having a sense of place, taking care of your physical and mental health and most of all, being real and approachable to others both personally and professionally.
Personal confidence is in my view made up of the four key elements that these four blogs have touched upon.
Confidence = Assertiveness + Assuredness + Authoritativeness + Authenticity
I hope you find this helpful it works for me and has worked for lots of people I have coached and trained over the years. Give it go, if you find it doesn’t work then OK, find something else, if it does then ace, spread the word and keep the confidence train a rollin’.
Thank you for reading. I really hope you have enjoyed reading this mini series of blogs to help build personal confidence. If you or your team need more help then get in touch with me Simon@serialtrainer7.com
