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Episode 415 – Why can’t I just be myself?

• Welcome to all my listeners
• Why can’t I just be myself?
• What a big question I am asking today.
• And I am not just asking it, but I am going to attempt to answer it
• Which – no doubt – will be hard
• Because for most of my life, I thought that’s exactly what I need to do
  • To be myself and the world will be in order
• No more communication challenges
• No more relationship problems and no more issues with people at work
• If I can just be myself – my life will be in order
• Because only if I am myself, am I authentic
• And why would I want to show the world a fake Janine?
• Lets start right there
• Being yourself is really not a decision between being fake or being real
• First we have to understand:
• What does being yourself actually mean?
• I did a quick google search and I found quite a few articles where the headline encourages us to be just ourselves
• I didn’t however find anything suggesting the contrary – so I am alone out there but bear with me
• One article asks:
  • Are you truly yourself?
  • Do you feel that you can be you, no matter the social situation you’re in?
• Another explains this being true to yourself as follows:
  • Our true self is who we really are when we let go of all of the stories, labels, and judgments that we have placed upon ourselves. It is who we naturally are without the masks and pretentiousness.
• Two completely different interpretations
• One is asking us to be the same person in every setting – then we are authentic
• The other is telling us that let go of all things that may cloud our true personality
• No wonder we are so confused!
• How does someone even translate this into practicality?
• It brings me back to my original question:
• What does being yourself actually mean?
• Or maybe a better question is:
• What is our true self?
• Do we even know what that is?
• And if we don’t know what that is – how can we bring it out?
• All the time – and 100%
• I thought about this being yourself thing for many years and here are my reasons as to why it doesn’t work
• We cannot just be ourselves because
• One – We don’t even know ourselves 100%.
  • We think we do but we have an image of ourselves that is skewed in our favor
  • Ask any of your friends for feedback about your personality and you likely will learn some truth that you may be aware of but struggle accepting
• We see one version of ourselves but that doesn’t mean that is our authentic self
• In fact, often its not – its an image we have of ourselves that is often a little different from how the world sees us
• So if we are not really aware of who we are, how can we be THAT person?
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• Two – the decision about being ourselves is just that – a decision
• Everything we do is a decision
• Someone tells a joke – we can react in many different ways to that
• How we react is a decision that is based on many different factors
• But how do we know if whatever decision we make in the moment we react is actually our authentic self?
• Within us we have many emotions and ways to express ourselves
• Maybe some yogis that have trained to just be with themselves, and I mean physically spent years alone and with minimal interaction, maybe they are highly in tune with who they are
• That means they will react to everything the same way
• But the majority of the population is not and will make a decision based on however they feel at the moment
• I know someone who is going through grief right now
• Some days he feels better than others, depending on whats going on in his immediate environment
• What is the true authentic him?
• We don’t know
• It depends on too many factors – mostly its based on how we feel
• And we are all not masters over our emotions, even though I wish I was
• So –
• As the one blog posted suggested – can you feel you can be you?
• Sure I can – but it depends on what I feel like at the moment
• And that changes say by day and from one situation to the next
• Which brings me to my 3^rd argument –
• our authentic self is complex and multi-layered and it consciously evolves
• We are not the same person we were years ago
• So if we are just ourselves – then we are always someone different
• Today I am the most honest person in the world and I will tell everyone what I think
• And tomorrow I will tell a bunch of lies because that how I decide to be
• The stories and the labels and the judgements are all part of who we are
• They make up our identity
• Is it really feasible, like this one definition suggested, to get rid of them all?
• I don’t think so
• They have become part of us over a lifetime and it would take another lifetime to get rid of them
• Again – the work that only a few people in this world undertake
• So – maybe I am missing something but I don’t see how just being yourself is even possible
• Not only that – I actually think its not effective and not in our best interest
• Being just yourself is egoistic
• Its what I do when I am emotional and let my frustration out on someone else
  • Recall episode 412
• Its who I am when I get impatient with the person driving in front of me
• I am myself, but I am not who I want to be
• Because myself is not YET the person I want to be
• At times, yes
• In certain situations, yes
• But not all the time
• And you have heard my episode where I share my mistakes with you
• When I am rude, impatient, emotional and disrespectful – I am myself
• That’s the first thing that occurs to me based on my lifetime worth of experiences
• But that is not WHO I WANT TO BE
• And the person I want to be I am still becoming
• With every interaction,
• With every new experience
• I get to reconsider and change myself
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• When I have tried to be myself
  • People have told me I am to direct, to emotional, to impatient, to this and to that
• When I am myself
  • I have hurt people’s feelings, disregarded their ideas, pushed them unnecessarily and not really listened to them
• When I am myself, I end up by myself
• Because I only see myself
• And not the other person
• And that is why it doesn’t work
• Because we live in a society where its important to work and live together effectively
• And if everyone was just who they are, without regard for the other person, this wouldn’t be such a functional system
• in every relationship I had – I have – at some point thrown my arms up in despair and yelled:
• Why cant I just be myself?
• The answer is simple – because there is another person across from me who also have feelings I need to consider
• I think, to truly be yourself is much harder than most people think
• It requires that we first know who we really are
• every time I asked this question – I know I just didn’t want to do the hard work of communicating, behaving and acting in accordance with my roles and responsibilities at that moment
• I wanted the world to understand me – but not the other way around
• And this brings me to the second part of this topic
• We can’t be ourselves – but here is what we can be
• We can be our BEST SELF
• We cant be ourselves because we are flawed
• And its not fair to require from the world to deal with our flaws
• We need to manage them
• We need to try to improve ourselves at all time
• And that requires effort and hard work
• My authentic self may come easy to me, but it may be hard for others to deal with
• My best self may cost me some work, but it will pay off because it will draw others to me
• My best self is not someone that seeks to please others and make them happy – but it does meet the expectations others have of me
• Yes, I know what you thinking
• Believe me – I rebelled against it for most of my life
• Because this sounds like we have to fake it
• But let me ask you:
• When you sit in the plane and are served your water by an unfriendly flight attendant – would you be happy?
• If you start a new job and your new boss doesn’t spend any time with you to explain things to you – how would feel?
• Do you think the people that work for you or with you, that service you, help you and engage with you always feel like it?
• I bet most of them don’t but yet – we have expect them to
• We even have expectations from those people close to us – our partners, our children and our friends
• Every day we play roles – partner, friend, boss, co-worker, volunteer, and so on
• And every role comes with expectations
• We can ignore them
• Many people do,
• But sooner or later we all come to terms with the fact that in order to be a successful business leader, an effective parent and a loving spouse, we have to play our role well
• Its not about faking it, but its about learning it
• As we are learning our role better, it may seem like we are acting because it doesn’t feel natural
• But so did riding our first bike or leaning a new language
• Everything new feels awkward at first but the better we learn it, the more it becomes part of us –
• And in the process of meeting expectations – as off-putting as it sounds – I have noticed – I actually become a better human being
• Yes – I have to force myself to be nice when I am in a hurry
• Yes – I have to force my smile to the clerk that is slow
• But in doing so, I am overcoming my inner tendency to be rude – which is my authentic self – sadly
• And I am working on making myself better
• Its fake in the beginning
• Its hard and requires effort
• But as I do so, I can already feel how much more effective it is
• And in forcing myself to change, I feel empowered, I gain confidence that I can be that better person
• And soon something that seemed fake becomes natural and become who I am
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• I have shared some of my weaknesses with you
• I told you I want to be kinder to people, more patient and also more punctual
• All these new behaviors costing me a lot of effort
• Just being who I am would imply that I never challenged myself to be any better
• But when I force myself to leave my office a couple minutes earlier to get to the meeting on time – I actually feel better
• I am playing the role of a punctual employee
• I do what is required of me
• But there is more
• I am not just fitting a norm – which people rebel against and don’t like
• And I can see why
• But in doing so I am changing myself
• Not to be someone I don’t want to be
• But to actually become someone better
• It may seem like I am doing what others expect of me and therefore I am not myself
• But its in the process of playing my role well that I become a better self
• The immediate benefit is for the other person
• They don’t have to deal with a difficult Janine
• They may deal with a fake Janine
• But only for a while
• As I feel better about my interaction with that person
• As I get a response from the person that encourages my fake being
• As I gain confidence that I can actually be kind even under pressure and that it brings about a better interaction –
• I will be motivated to do it again
• And every time I give it another go, I gain more and more confidence
• And soon, the new behavior becomes part of me
• Becomes my authentic self
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• This my friends – is how we become our BEST self
• our authentic self may already be pretty good
• Maybe you have your kindness and patience mastered and don’t need to fake it like I still have to do
• And being who you are may work many times and in many situations
• But there is always room for growth
• And there are always situations that require us to adapt and play a role that may not come natural
• Being who we are 100% of time – I believe – doesn’t work
• Life constantly challenges us and its our job, I believe, to adapt to these challenges in a way that produces the best outcome for everyone involved – not just for ourselves
• Examples come to mind where we are the ones that suffer the most due to an unfortunate event
• Yet – instead of making it just about us – there is always the possibility to help others out as well

• I will dedicate another episode to some of the skills and behaviors I believe we need to possess to become successful in every role we have to play
• I am learning a lot of that from the Book Mastery by Robert Greene which I have mentioned on a couple episodes already
• I have begun to realize that when people are unwilling to help me, are upset or frustrated because of something I said, that I am not my best self
• While I cannot control how everyone feels
• Nor can I make everyone happy
• But I can try to be my best self which means I put forth my best effort
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• And how to do that is a constant challenge for me that I am actually loving
• so join me on that journey and lets talk more about it

much love