…while making you hate yourself

I wasn’t one of the cool kids in high school. Unathletic, I didn’t do any sports. I didn’t find my abilities on the guitar until college. I spent most of my time working on cars and being too scared to talk to girls. Looking back on it now, I really had very little going for me back then. While I was OK with not being a cool kid when I was younger, somewhere on the journey to adulthood other people’s validation began to matter to me a great deal. I thought if you weren’t liked, it was your job to find a way to make people like you.

If you want to make people like you no matter the cost, there is one surefire way to make it happen while making yourself miserable in the process.

Be the Person They Want You to Be

Sounds innocent right? In fact, we’re taught to do this very thing from an early age. Our parents, teachers, coaches, and other influential people in our lives set the standards for behavior. They tell us what is acceptable and what is not, and how to be good little boys and girls. Society runs on order, obedience, and compliance.

But, what I’m referring to goes a bit deeper than whether you choose to comply with standards for acceptable behavior. The most extreme examples of this are children who have a passion for something their parents don’t agree with. Maybe you have the desire to paint and want to pursue a career as an artist, but your parents pressure you into the family business. Or you would like to be a missionary but your spouse isn’t on board.

Changing what you do to earn a living to placate those around you may provide some benefits financially. It may even seem like a logical choice. But, sacrificing who you are in order to make that choice will likely lead you down a path that finds you living a long, miserable existence. Many people would call it living a life of regret.

This Isn’t Only Relevant for Major Life Choices

While your choice of what you do for a living impacts so many aspects of your life, equally as important are the small choices you make about who you are being moment by moment. How many times in relationships with other humans do we allow their judgment – or our assumption of what their judgment might be – to affect our behavior?

I have many aspects of my life. Disparate interests and skills have coalesced into this one human with a unique and diverse set of passions and experiences. I used to feel like I had to live them all in separate compartments. Jon, the guitar player was only for the weekends. Jon the healthcare executive – prim and proper, pointy-headed and intellectual – took over the Monday to Friday. I kept those personas separate, and while they were both legitimate pieces of who I was as a person, I never allowed anyone to see the sum of those parts.

I remember years ago when many of my coworkers had the chance to see me perform on stage, and they all commented how they couldn’t believe the guy up there was the same one they worked with. They were shocked I could cut loose and let my hair down like that. Apparently, my reputation around the office was a bit stuffy.

I vowed that day to let people see all of me in both settings. Why not be a nerd and a wannabe weekend rock star in the same person? I already was, but now I was ready to show people both sides of the coin.

Problems With Not Showing People the Real You

Hiding pieces of yourself from the people in your life will lead to a number of issues.

You’re being dishonest with them

When you show up as a partial version of yourself, you aren’t being honest with the people in your life. You are holding up a false version of yourself.

You’re being dishonest with yourself

Chances are you’re doing this because at least on some level, you have convinced yourself that people will not accept the real you. You aren’t enough. Or, maybe you’re “too much.” Those are lies we tell ourselves to justify hiding from others. You won’t know how people will love and accept the real you until you show up as a complete and transparent version of yourself.

You will become resentful

When you don’t feel like you can show up as yourself, you will start to harbor resentment. You will become bitter at the thought that you have people liking the “you” you have manufactured instead of the real you, the one created for the very moment you are living in.

They don’t actually like you

They can’t. Wanna know why? You haven’t actually shown them you. Your curated persona may be loved and admired. But, it isn’t you. Unless you are showing people the true you, the whole you, then they aren’t loving you. They’re loving what you want them to see.

When you show up in your life as someone else, you know who isn’t showing up? You.

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

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Being Yourself May Not Make People Like You, but it Matters

Would you like to experience an authentic, honest-to-God miracle? You’re in luck then, because you are one. Don’t believe me? This article proves it. Just the fact you were born is a miracle beyond statistical reason. Doesn’t it stand to reason that God designed you for this very moment? That you were brought into this world for a specific purpose? Out of all the people on this planet throughout history, there will only ever be one of you.

When you don’t show up authentically in your life, you deny all of us the possibility of your purpose, the very reason you were placed here. When you show others in your life the real you, you have a chance to live that purpose out.

Your unique mixture of gifts and experiences will never pass this way again. Use it wisely!

In her great TedxYouth Talk titled “What Does It Mean To Be Yourself?” Carly Sotas calls us to a responsibility to share our stories with others, to show up as only we can in our own lives and the lives of those around us. Her full talk is below. At less than 15 minutes, it is definitely worth a listen.

Would you like to continue the conversation? Leave a comment below, or check out my blog for more discussion. I’d love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading!