Are You Ready to Finally Be You?

Jan 18

After coaching people for twenty years I know that people are always trying to fit in, please other people, or make themselves look like they got their shit together.

First of all, it’s all bullshit. Especially the part about having our shit together. None of us have our shit together. Not really. We are human.

Second of all, it’s sad. And I don’t mean that in a condescending, ‘everyone is pathetic’ way. I truly mean it’s sad. Because if we are spending all this time covering up our own truths with the lies that society (or our family and friends) feed us, then we have no idea who we are. We only know who we think we should be and who everyone around us thinks we should be, too. We are robbed of our selves.

And while not knowing who we are is sad enough, it gets sadder when you think about what we are robbing the world of when we fail to show up authentically.

I believe we all are an extension of God, or Source, or Universe or Higher Power (insert whatever word you want to use or whatever you believe). I believe that we haven't been made by accident, but by design.

There's an abundance of gifts we each possess. There's an overwhelming amount of possibility we each have at our disposal. Yet we don't always access our full potential or claim our true power or stand firmly in our own SELF because everything I already identified—people pleasing, and fitting in, and doing the expected.

Fear, doubt, limiting beliefs, old stories, unhelpful narratives, and a shit load of poorly programmed neuronal pathways all keep us from living and leading boldly or having the audacity to be who we are: brilliant powerhouses capable of changing the world.

This is where I like to come in.

TIME TO PLAY THE INTERNAL GAME

When women executives who are badassess but don’t feel like it (or have forgotten) work with me, we always start with the inside game. Simply put, it’s getting attuned with who they really are. It’s taking the time and space to quiet the shit storm of prior input, narratives, expectations, etc. to get still and intentional about looking at themselves honestly (and lovingly) in order to get aligned with all their gooey insides. Because until that internal game is really dialed in, that outer game is going to continue to be a mess, or at least not as effective or powerful.

You have to understand your own truth and authenticity, own it, celebrate it, love on it, before you’re going to make the impact you are capable of or become the leader you were born to be. Consider this. There are three elements to peak performance—in anything, not just work. 1) You. 2) The ‘what’ you’re doing. 3) Your environment. They all connect to one another, so if any one of those isn’t operating at its highest caliber, you’re not at optimal performance.

Sometimes you don’t have all the control over your environment or even the work you’re doing. But you do have control over your actions, your mindset, your beliefs, and how you show up and choose to engage with the world around you.

The thing is most of us don’t actually take intentional time or study on what it means to be ourselves. See, we’ve come full circle. Start with the inner game. Begin by understanding who you really want to be, what you’re really about, and how you really want to show up.

These are all a part of becoming your authentic self and eventually the badass that changes the world.

SIX COMPONENTS OF DISCOVERING YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF

What does that mean exactly? What is the ‘authentic self’? (The age old question of philosophers for centuries, “Who am I?” What is the ‘I’ they’re referring to?)

Let’s begin with the definition of authenticity.

Authenticity: 2) not false; REAL, ACTUAL; 3) true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.

Kind of hard to be real or true to your own spirit if you don’t know what that is and never explored it. When I work with clients through my Trailblazer Bootcamp, we work through six core areas.

This personal development program is founded on the idea that personal success and happiness ultimately come from enhanced self-awareness. When you’re self-aware, you’re more authentic.

Self-awareness includes essential personal development components including: values, beliefs, goals, skills, support and success. Each of these stack on top of the other creating the foundation of your own badassery which I also call the success alignment.

Let me break these down into bite-sized pieces. Because we got the rest of the year to go deeper.

Values

This is your first layer. Why? When you understand your values it is easy to know when something is right for you, because your values are the things that are the most important to you – the things that you cannot live happily without.

By knowing your values, you will be able to make decisions that you will find fulfilling and rewarding. By not knowing your values, you may make decisions that meet someone else’s values and may or may not make you happy.

Beliefs

Layer two is beliefs. Simply stated, beliefs are a feeling of certainty around what something means. Like values, your beliefs motivate you and impact your results.

You collect your beliefs, usually subconsciously, from your friends, family, and society, and from your experiences. It is usually easier to radically change a belief than it is to radically change a value because beliefs come from interpreting an event at a specific point in time.

Why is this important in the quest for authenticity? Understanding what beliefs empower (build you up) and disempower (tear you down) you is a critical piece to the way you respond to your circumstances, events, challenges, etc.

Goals

Once you have a better understanding of your values and beliefs, then you are ready to explore goals that inspire and excite you because they should. Goals should excite, motivate, challenge and inspire you to learn and grow. Naturally, they’ll probably align with your values and the beliefs that empower you. Having goals is a crucial part of living a successful life. And you, my dear Boss woman, are all about success. Yes?

Skills

The times when we are the happiest are when we are using our natural talents and skills to perform something that we are excited about. In these situations, time somehow ceases to exist, and we are living in the moment – living in the flow. Your flow.

That means identifying your natural talents or strengths (as well as your weaknesses), adds a layer of self-awareness that helps you perform at your best and reach the goals you’ve established.

Support

It is all well and good to have perfectly aligned values, beliefs, goals, and skills, but it is easy to become derailed if you are not surrounding yourself with a great support network. Your support network consists of people who make you laugh, make you think, challenge you and inspire you, all of which contributes to your success.

A group of people that do these things sound awesome, don’t they? Why would we ever hang out with anybody who made us feel less?

We only have a limited amount of precious time each day so we should only invest our time in people who help us to grow and get us closer to our dreams. (Read: lose the debbie downers, party poopers, one-uppers, and anyone else interrupting your flow and awesome.)

Success

The last layer is to define your personal unique definition of success. This is where you take ownership of your success. Too often, we are influenced by society or the perception of others on the meaning of success, but success has no meaning except for what you choose to give it. It is time to give success a meaning that is real and right

for you. Now that you’ve done all the other work in identifying your values, beliefs, goals, etc. this should be way easier than if you had tried doing this in reverse.

AUTHENTICITY LEADS TO LIVING AND LEADING BOLDLY

In a nutshell, self-awareness fosters authenticity. When you’re authentic (aka true to yourself) you live and lead more boldly. You create a life (in and outside of the boardroom) that has both heart and meaning. Which is what you want, isn’t it?

So, are you ready to finally be you? Because who is going to be you if you won't be?

I believe we need you. I believe you were made for something spectacular. And I know you've got what it takes.

Any impact you want to have, any world-changing epic stuff you want to do, is going to have to come from a place of knowing, loving, and trusting yourself to be 100% authentically and unapologetically you.

It's time to lean in and embrace all that you are. If you don't know who that is, or you have a hard time being her, jump on a call with me. I'll be the wrecking ball you need to help knock down the barriers and the bullshit keeping the real you small.