How To Be Yourself Around Others
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For many of us, it can be difficult to feel like we’re being our full, true selves around other people. This can be due to social anxiety, a lack of confidence, an unfamiliarity with the other people you’re with, or any number of other factors.
Once you can learn to be yourself around other people, you will find social interactions much more relaxing, stress-free, and enjoyable.
What Does it Mean To Be Yourself?
Truly being yourself is allowing yourself to be exactly who you authentically are, no matter the setting. It’s allowing the world to see you without any masks, filters, or false personas. Being yourself is being confident enough to say “this is who I am. Take me or leave me.” This can seem scary at first, because not everyone will immediately love you for who you truly are. However, those that can’t accept you at your most real will either come around eventually, or you’ll decide you no longer need them in your life.
Why am I not Myself Around Others?
Often, not being your true self around others stems from feeling that who you are at your core is not good enough or acceptable enough to the company you keep. This may be due to low self-confidence, low-self-esteem, social anxiety, or just not quite understanding how to effectively communicate in social settings. Once you become comfortable with yourself, you’ll become comfortable letting your true self show in social settings.
How to Be Yourself Around Others
If you are someone, like many of us, who has spent months or even years putting on a persona in public, it can be hard to imagine allowing your true self to show in social situations. However, this is an achievable goal, even for the shyest or most self-conscious among us. Here are some steps and tools to help you.
Reflect on Yourself
Before you can present your truest self to anyone else, you must first put in the work to understand yourself. Get to know how you think, feel, act, and react. Learn who you really are. You can do this through journaling, self-reflection, or meditation.
Accept Your Strengths & Weaknesses
Not one person on this planet is perfect. We all have things we’re good at, as well as things we aren’t so great at. This is all part of being human. Accept it. Accept yourself, including all of your strengths and weaknesses. Each of them is an important puzzle piece in the picture of who you truly are.
Build Confidence in Yourself
Confidence is key when trying to be yourself around others. If you have low self-confidence, you may feel that others will reject, mock, or judge you based on your true identity. It takes courage and confidence to be vulnerable around other people. Do everything you can to build your confidence each day. This can be through reciting mantras, making lists of tasks you successfully completed, or listing out your unique and positive qualities.
Be Mindful of the Moment
Everything is easier when you live in the moment. Being able to live in the moment, however, can be difficult at first. Once you can learn to forget about the past and not wonder about the future, you will be able to live in the moment. This encourages mindfulness and will bring peace and calm into your life. When we aren’t always looking behind or ahead of ourselves, we’re able to stop and enjoy the exact moment we’re presently in.
Set Your Personal Boundaries
Being yourself around others doesn’t mean you have to share every aspect of your life, disclose personal information, or go along with everything someone you’re socializing with says or does. Instead, it’s healthy to set personal boundaries before and during social interactions. Know what you’re willing to share, and what you’d like to keep private. Be firm with yourself about what sorts of things you’re comfortable talking about or participating in and stick to your guns. Part of being your true self means only engaging in things that feel right for you.
Be Authentic in the Way You Communicate
One way we hide our true selves is through the way we speak and communicate. Often, it seems easier to say something that doesn’t really convey how we’re actually feeling, or what we really think. It can be hard to speak directly and honestly, especially if you’re worried you’ll ruffle feathers or cause conflict. This isn’t your concern. Your responsibility is to yourself – communicating truthfully is the best gift you can give not only to yourself, but also to the people you socialize with.
Be an Active Listener
When we’re nervous in social situations, we tend to plan an answer or response to someone’s question or statement while they’re still speaking. This takes us out of the moment and can make the interaction inauthentic. Instead, actively listen to the person speaking to you without pre fabricating a response. When they’re finished, think about what you’ve just heard, and respond back in a way that makes them feel heard and understood.
Build A Supporting Community Around Yourself
Sometimes, the reason it’s hard to be yourself around others is because you’re surrounding yourself with the wrong people. You should build a strong, positive, supportive community. Don’t waste your time on people who are constantly critical, judgmental, or cruel. Instead, fill your life with people who radiate positivity and authenticity.
Learn From Mistakes
When learning how to be yourself around others, it won’t always be smooth sailing. You will make mistakes. This is inevitable. Rather than fixating on what went wrong and shamefully replaying it over and over again in your head, use every mistake as a learning experience. Analyze the situation to understand what went wrong, how the mistake could have been avoided, and then make a plan for how you’ll handle it next time.
Seek Mental Support and Help
If you still find it very difficult to be yourself around others, reach out for help. There are lots of resources out there, from therapists, to trusted friends, to support groups, and life coaches. Knowing you need help and being able to accept it are signs of strength and will be invaluable in your journey to self-authenticity.
How to Find Support With Social Skills
There are so many reasons people seek out a life coach, including to get help becoming more confident in social situations. A trained, experienced life coach like Jonette Dyer knows how to utilize components of life coaching,relationship coaching and mental health coaching to help you become the best, most authentic version of yourself. She can help you become more self-aware, and figure out who you truly are. From there, she can help you develop social skills that will make it easier to be yourself around others. To start on your journey of self-actualization, reach out to Jonette Dyer today.
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