How To Discover Your Authentic Self

Authenticity Unlocks Purpose

It is my strong belief that if you are not true to yourself, you can never really fulfil your life’s work or purpose. And I think you might resonate with this. No matter how many attempts you make at the work that is in front of you, you just aren’t fulfilled or get the results that you want. And sometimes you may get the results. And people may praise you. But you just aren’t fulfilled. And I guarantee everyone who does work they dislike is this way; some are just better actors than others.

That brings us to a very important topic: how do you go about finding the true version of yourself?

Your parents don’t teach you this because they haven’t been taught it themselves. Personally, my parents were immigrants who came to this country with no English, they certainly aren’t going to teach me how to be my authentic self or find my life’s work. They’re just going to say the most popular opinion around, which they did; go to school and get a stable job.

But then, school won’t help you either. The idea of being your authentic self is not taught in schools.

School is just a system designed to train you to memorise and perform a single task for the rest of your life.

The government won’t help you either. In fact, the government has no feeling toward you. You’re just another one who drives the system.

So, how do you actually go about finding out who you really are? In this video I will share deep concepts that will help you with that question. The idea of an “authentic self” will be more clear to you by the end of this video. I do promise you that.

You’re A Creator Regardless

Let’s first understand the signs of not being the most authentic version of yourself:

You’re not doing the work you truly desire. You’re not making as much money as you’d like. You don’t attract the right people into your life. You’re often in the wrong environment. Your health is not as good as it can be. Your happiness takes a downward turn. Obviously there’s more but that’s the big picture. And if you experience any of those, that’s a sign you are inauthentic to yourself.

One quote which always seemed to have stood out to me:

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The more I read into that quote, the more it becomes clear what Emerson was actually trying to say is being yourself (authentic) is practically going to be the most challenging task in life.

You don’t need me to tell you this. The world is always trying to make you into something you’re not. Don’t ask me why. The purpose of this video isn’t to find out why. The purpose of this video is to go inward to understand ourselves more and improve the situation from our own lens. Because that’s all you can do.

You can’t change anything in the world, but you can always choose what you want from it.

And just a side note but work is by far going to take up the majority of your life. I don’t care what you think. You are always going to be working on something. We are all creators. You are creating whether you like it or not. At your job, you are creating results for the company. I’m not sure if you are aware but you are somewhat contributing. They don’t have you there for no reason. It’s just likely that the work isn’t what you actually want to do.

That’s why authenticity is extremely important. Because authenticity unlocks purpose.

That’s one big reason you should attempt to find yourself, because as you do, you are also at the same time attempting to find your life’s work. Wouldn’t it be worth to know what you’ve been brought here to create? If so, recognise that you can’t find that without actually finding your true self. So, enough with the rambling. Let’s look at ways how you can be, rather than do.

Recognise your true self has and will always exist. It was present in the past, it is here now, and it will remain in the future. I’ve always had trouble with this. I always thought that I could be myself sometime in the future. That my life had to change dramatically for me to start embodying my actual self. But that’s wrong because when you do that you’re simply numbing yourself because your future self isn’t a different self, it’s the same you. When you visualise, you aren’t visualising a different version of you, you are simply visualising the you that takes the actions that are more aligned with your inner world. You are visualising the version of you that is playing out the image of your authentic self.

If that got confusing, let’s make it simpler. If you’re asking who your authentic self is:

Your authentic self is your true thoughts and feelings in the moment.

So, first things first, you can start tapping into your authentic self simply by observing your present thoughts and feelings.

Recognise where you’ve disconnected or detached from your true self This is where the problem gets big. You might not know who you are because you’ve suppressed your inner self for years, and instead took on other identities and personas in the effort to make your life better.

The reason as to why so many people say their lives are a mess is because they’ve buried the core parts of themselves. And when you do that you impact all areas of your life. Health, wealth, happiness, and love. But you see, it won’t just be evident in the external, you will also feel a lack of fulfilment internally.

I’ve already made a video on how to stop caring what others think. But the essence of that video just explains how you’re constantly trying to validate your self-image to the world.

You choose stimulation (excitement) over truth.

You’re attached to compliments. Things like how your family will compliment you if you did get that boring, but prestigious job. I’m not trying to demonise compliments here. The thing about compliments is that they’re good to the point you need them.

Compliments are valuable only as long as you feel you need them.

Because once you become attached to compliments, there is now a need and so you detach from truth.

When you give too much into others and the world, you’re sacrificing bits of you. But when you embrace your true self, you’re giving up parts of the world instead.

See how that works?

What this means is that there is a cost for being you. There is always a cost in a transaction. In this case the cost may mean that you have no friends, it may mean your spouse leaves you or you leave her, it may mean that you are lonely for a period of time. It may even mean that you are jobless. But if you are anything like me, what I would say is be yourself despite the cost.

Start this process of understanding yourself by asking yourself, do you really like the things you like or does someone else like them? Instead of acting, what would you actually be doing? The more you repeat questions like this to yourself, the more you will become authentic, and the more you will realise just how much your life is actually dictated by societal expectations. What I mean is how many rules have programmed your own mind.

One weird exercise I want you to practise is not to focus on the bad habit, but instead attempt to outline the underlying issue behind it. So, we already know the bad habits that we don’t want to do, but give into. But quite often there is a bigger issue behind the bad habit.

So, binge-watch shows, eat junk food, go out drinking. Do it all. But then come back to yourself and process what it was that you were actually avoiding. Because giving into bad habits, we’re always avoiding something in exchange. Take part in the bad habit, but don’t let it go there. After doing it, come back, sit down, and contemplate what it was that you were avoiding. The bigger issue. Do this because there is no escape. You must revisit it. So do it intentionally.

Every time I seem to do this I realise how little the issue was. The good thing in this is that you will realise what you were actually avoiding was never intolerable. Meaning, that piece of work or whatever it is was, was never non-manageable. You were capable of it doing it all along.

Intentionally Seek Situations That Feel More Aligned With You The people that are similar to you are doing what you want to be doing.

Here’s a few questions I want you to ask yourself:

“What traits feel like a natural extension to me?” “what would someone like me be doing?” “Where would they be in the mornings?” “What would their day look like?” “Which events would they attend?” “What types of friends would they have?” Keep asking yourself these questions because the people you want to surround yourself with, and the environments you want to be in, will be more clear to you once you’re honest.

Accept Discomfort And Stay Grounded In Challenging Situations If you are not comfortable with certain situations, then what I would say is totally immerse yourself in that situation. Feel the discomfort.

Discomfort is a natural response to situations you aren’t feeling aligned with. You avoid discomfort when it is the very thing that will guide you to your authentic self.

The bigger the gap between how you’re behaving and how you’re actually feeling, the bigger the gap between your authentic and inauthentic self.

You accept things physically in the physical world, but hold back mentally in your internal world. There is a disconnection between the physical and the mental when instead they should be one.

We can talk about this in terms of your personal relationships. In the case of family relationships, friendships, work colleagues, or even when you’re on a date; when there is an awkward pause, there is disconnection. The larger the pause, the larger the disconnection you have with that person. And that just shows that you two do not connect. These are often moments we try controlling, but that’s wrong. Instead, just be fully present.

In any situation, especially one that doesn’t feel right, do not rush with false energy. You trying to control and fix is your inauthentic side coming into play. If you feel the disconnect, stop and ask yourself, how you can react most authentically while still keeping things under control.

It always comes back to how present you are. Especially when you feel guilt, shame, anxiety, loneliness, etc. Those are the times you must remain most present because those are the moments you are most split with your authentic self. Your inauthentic self wants to solve the problem immediately.

Summary

Those are the 4-steps. Let’s do a quick recap.

Your true self is always there with you: connect with it by paying attention to your present thoughts and feelings Examine your bad habits to uncover the root causes behind them Seek environments and situations that feel like a natural extension to you Discomfort is the biggest indicator to areas you do not feel aligned Bridge the gap between how you think, behave, and feel to eliminate inauthenticity A last note on all of this. If your present thoughts and feelings are your authenticity, and we know that your thoughts and feelings can change, this means your authenticity can change.

Being authentic is a continuous process.

The one way you can truly measure your authenticity is by looking at what you are settling for. That’s the one way you can truly measure how truthful you’re being to yourself.

Your version of happiness is going to be different in the different phases of your life, but you must define what being happy means to you in each of them. You can only be authentic when you know you’re happy doing the things you want to.

And I made this video because it’s hard. It’s hard when you’re inauthentic. But it’s even harder when your reality is not a reflection of your inner dialogue. And although I gave you steps and concepts, this is a lifetime process. There is no one solution. You have to make mistakes and in that understand yourself more. It’s a process. But in each mistake, or moment of inauthenticity, ensure to pattern interrupt and take the right course of action.

That’s all from me for this week.

You can also watch the video version of this on YouTube: Don’t Know Yourself? Here’s How To Discover Your Authentic Self

See you on the next one.

-Serkan