Authenticity is often discussed and seldom defined. What does being authentic mean?

In my last ezine, I shared some of the elements of your authentic life.

How many of these apply to your current life?

Elements of an Authentic Life

1. You know your values and live in accordance with them. When you do things that are opposite to your values or even slightly not aligned, you start to feel uncomfortable.

2. You know your strengths. You engage in work and activities that let you use and enjoy your strengths.

3. You spend a lot of time with your like-minded people. Your choices about where you spend your time (work, socializing, spiritually) tend to put you in touch with like-minded people who value what you value.

4. You are working in the service of something bigger than yourself. When you’re living your authentic life, you’re generally engaged in work that supports other people.

Feelings You Experience

More confidence. You feel more expert at what you do. The alignment between your values and your actions gives you inner certainty.

More clarity on your decisions, with less second-guessing.

More satisfaction and significance. You see that you’re making a difference; your efforts contribute to something bigger.

Business Results

Being authentic yields lots of good business results!

1. You are more client-attractive. Where you spend your time in your work, career, spiritual, social life leads to more time with like-minded people. Like-minded people really get excited about what you get excited about. You don’t have to spend lots of time educating, convincing, or motivating them. They’re already on the same page as you.

2. Your content or message (whatever that means in your business) is richer. For example, I started early on doing a training on time management. It’s such a general topic and I’m not passionate about it. Do I get out of bed at 4am because I’m so passionate about time management? NO! Early on, my content was more generic and less specific to me. Over time, it has become increasingly specific. One talk I’ve done for a long time is Releasing the 3Ps: Procrastination, Perfectionism and People-Pleasing. That is very personal to me and I’m fascinated by this topic. This talk will constantly develop; I’m always changing it; it can grow and change indefinitely.

The same thing will happen for you as well. Depending on your business, your content looks different. Nonetheless, there’s something about your approach to your work that becomes more specific and less generic. It makes you more client-attractive and better differentiates you from others in your field.

3. You have more relaxed and confident conversations with potential clients and team members. The more authentic you feel, the more your mindset is expansive and abundant. You feel more relaxed and more confident. That definitely has an effect on the person you’re speaking with. Whatever you think and feel can’t be concealed from someone else.

Feeling like you’re living your authentic life will definitely help YOU feel more relaxed and more confident, which in turn will definitely help your conversation partner (your prospect or potential team member) also feel more relaxed and confident.

That helps reduce anxiety and fear and helps them make a decision with a clear head.

4. You experience more calm and peace. This reduces the time you spend in overwhelm and confusion. The entrepreneur’s biggest mental foe is overwhelm, closely followed by fear. Those two are inter-related. Fear brings up overwhelm and overwhelm increases fear.

The more you’re on your authentic path, the greater sense of calm you feel, so you experience less overwhelm and fear. You have increased clarity about what you want to do. You’re more clear on what you need to do moment by moment.

The journey to your authentic self has huge payoffs and not one negative thing I can think of!

CALL TO ACTION

You can easily assess where you are with authenticity by checking in on the results you’re experiencing.

Are you feeling confident and at peace?
Are you having relaxed conversations with prospects?
Do you have as many clients/team members as you want?
Do you spend lots of time with your like-minded people?