Practice authenticity: Embrace who you are

In a now screen-obsessed world, we always try to prove ourselves. We try to fit in people's frames and want to be liked, admired, and try to be the centre of attraction. We get to indulge in copying others, stealing others' ideas, and we start enjoying this momentary happiness. We spend and waste lots of money and time to present ourselves in false pretences. In these all practices, we don't come to know how we went far away from our originality and get habitual to living a phoney life. Our ideology got changed and wore the mask of a clone. We forget our priorities and important role of our authentic existence.

By default, we can't live an adaptive life for long. Living so may results in frustration, anger, complaining, depression and no doubt even cursing our fate. It is important to embrace who we are. Be our true selves. Being authentic means that we act in ways that show our true selves and how we feel. Being authentic means being honest and genuine. People respond to people who feel 'real' to them. Authenticity is about how you conduct yourself, how you treat others and the way you work. It is about establishing and showing an honest and consistent alignment between our words and our actions. Much like other, personal and professional skills, authenticity can be developed. Below are five ways I would consider.

1. Be honest. Express yourself well and use kind, constructive and inclusive language. Accept what we are and learn what personality we want.

2. Engage other people. To be authentic we have to care about more than just ourselves so it is important to engage other people. Look people in the eyes when we speak to them. Ask questions. Practice reflective listening. Listen to what they tell us. Resist the temptation to talk about ourselves.

3. Treat everyone with respect. Treating other people well is the surest sign of someone confident, collected and genuine. Be gracious, polite and respectful to everyone, from the janitor to the vice-president, from co-workers to peons.

4. Test ourselves. Becoming more aware of ourselves, how we operate in the world, how we behave and how we impact people is the key to using our authentic selves.

5. Look at others. Studying good books is a good way to learn and understand reality and truths. Observing great people is also a good way to understand what being real looks like. For example, there are three very different authentic persons Amitabh Bachchan, Narendra Modi and Lata Mangeshkar. Each of their approach to life and work are different. We can tell that they are all passionate about what they do. They are consistent in their words, and deeds and they are not apologetic about who they are and they integrate their personal qualities into their work life, personal life and leadership.

Nobody likes a phoney. If we acknowledge what is true for us, then we can better live our life according to the needs of our authentic selves. If people read us authentic they will trust us, value us and look to us for leadership and guidance.

(The author is currently working as a merchandiser at Pearl Global Industries Limited at Gurugram)