How to be Your Authentic Self: Tips on Goal Setting, Purpose and More

How do you be your authentic self? This is a question that most people ask themselves at some point in their lives, whether or not they articulate it that way.

How can we be true to ourselves and ignore the expectations of others? Should we even try to be our authentic self? It can be difficult, but it is definitely possible, and extremely rewarding!

In this blog post, we will discuss goal setting, courage, purpose, and more. We will provide tips on how to stay true to yourself and achieve your goals.

Set Goals 

A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envisions, plans and commits to achieve. People commit to achieving goals by setting targets and declaring intentions.

People set goals for themselves all the time without realising it – for instance, planning to get promoted at work or becoming fitter and healthier. But if you want to achieve something significant, you need to be more deliberate and systematic about it.

“While you can have virtually anything you want, you can’t have everything you want”

~ Ray Dalio, Principles (2017)

Here I will share with you Ray Dalio’s 5 step process for getting what you want out of life, because it’s an amazing resource. If you haven’t read the book Principles yet I urge you to set a goal to do so.

5 Step Process For Getting What You Want Out Of Life

1. Have clear goals.
2. Identify and don’t tolerate problems that stand in the way of achieving your goals.
3. Accurately diagnose the problems to get at their root causes. 
4. Design plans that will get you around them. 
5. Do what’s necessary to push these designs through to results.

The topic of goal setting deserves it’s own post.

If you want to achieve goals, you have to be so clear about what they are.

Visualize your goals so that you can see, hear, smell, touch and feel authentic detail about what happens when you finally achieve the goal.

Your goals should be based around your core values, so you can maintain authenticity with your true self.

Remember your goals so clearly that you could recite them if someone woke you up in the middle of night and asked you what your goals were.

A powerful method for keeping your goals clear is to write them down at least once a day. You can do this in the morning and you don’t need any reference.

As soon as you wake up in the morning, take a blank sheet of paper and write whatever goals come to your mind.

This is a powerful method to find what goals are most important to you.

Don’t just listen to me, find a method that makes sense to you in this hectic world.

Such a simple suggestion is to write your goals and put them up on the walls of your house where you will see them often. Laminate your goals and put them in the shower where it’s impossible to avoid.

Seeing your goals materialize in real life is a result of action.

Once you know what your goals are, schedule blocks of time where you put in the work that’s needed to achieve the goal.

If you dedicate enough time and energy to achieving your goals, the probability of success becomes higher. Achieving your goals gets you closer to your true self makes you a more authentic person.

Base your goals around what is most important given where you are in life. You can refer to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.

Begin at the bottom of the pyramid and work your way up. The path to becoming our true selves involves self-actualization, but that can only be achieved after all lower level needs have been fulfilled.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Image source

Who Do You Want To Be?

Do you know who you want to be at the end of the day, month, year? Do you know who you want to be when your eulogy is being delivered at your funeral? These are the types of questions you need to be asking yourself if you want to become your authentic self.

It’s not about what society wants you to be or what other people think you should be. Life is about being our authentic selves within society. What’s really important is setting your own goals based around your inner core beliefs and achieving them. It’s about being creative and showing self confidence.

Ask yourself why you want to be who you want to be. What are your motivations? What will it allow you to do that you can’t do now? How will it make you feel? Examine family belief systems that brought you to where you are today. Take some time alone and have an honest dialogue with yourself.

Get clear on who you want to be and start taking steps to become that person. It won’t happen overnight, but if you are consistent with your efforts, you will eventually become your authentic self. If you can find your own authenticity you will uncover a deep sense of purpose in your life.

“The best way to find out who you are is to go out and do something.”

~ Unknown

One of the best ways to become your authentic self is to go out and do something. Get involved in activities that interest you. Try new things. Fail. Get back up and try again. Learn from your mistakes. Grow as a person.

Most people naturally feel afraid to fail, but trying and failing is one of the best ways of developing authenticity. Failing and getting better will only develop higher self esteem.

Look deeply into your inner and outer aspects to uncover the truth underneath. If you don’t have an existing meditation practice, I suggest integrating it into your life to increase your daily raw awareness and improve overall mental health.

Find Courage 

It seems as if courage comes naturally to some, and others live their whole life without an ounce of courage in them.

Courage is not the absence of fear. It’s being afraid and doing it anyway.

I’m a fan of the UFC (mixed martial arts) and I enjoy watching the fighters perform, but I’m also deeply intrigued by the mindset of fighters.

Fighters are often asked if they are scared or nervous going into their next fight. I’ve found the majority of them say they are afraid, nervous and anxious to go into the cage and fight.

But you know what, they do it anyway. Win or lose, they enter the arena as ready as they can be for the moment ahead, and give the best performance they can.

This is true courage, being afraid of something but still pushing ahead with perseverance.

You need to have courage to be your authentic self, set your own goals and achieve them. Courage is required to be creative and confident.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”

~Ambrose Redmoon

Find what is important to you and let that guide your actions. Don’t let fear hold you back from being your best self.

“Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take action and do the things you are afraid of. As you face your fears, they will begin to lose their power over you. Eventually, you will reach a point where you are no longer afraid.

Now I’m going to share with you the most powerful advice I’ve heard from anyone, ever. I first heard of it at University in a class titled Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in 2019.

When you grow up, you tend to get told that Life is the way it is, and your Life is just to live your Life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money, but life, that’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader. Once you discover one simple fact, and that is that: 

Everything around you that you call Life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. 

And the minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in something will pop out the other side, you can change it, you can mold it, that’s maybe the most important thing. Is to shake off this uh uh erroneous notion that Life is there and you’re just going to live it. Versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. I think that’s very important. And however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better because it’s kind of messed up in a lot of ways. Once you learn that you’ll never be the same again. 

~Steve Jobs, (1994)

If you have any preconceived notions about Steve Jobs, put that aside for now and really consider what he has said here.

You can change Life, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. 

You are a creator with your own abilities. We all have so much potential to make our mark on the world, no matter what our circumstances are. 

Some will change the world in a big way and at scale, others will change the lives of those in their community, and others still will unfortunately fade out after striving for little and achieving even less. 

Think of any person you know in an admirable position in life, a person that has done something worth mentioning, a person that is talked about in high regard by others. 

The reality is, that could have been anyone doing what they did if they had the perseverance and good enough timing. 

Objectively Take Personal Inventory 

It’s good practice to do this yearly, monthly and weekly to differing degrees. 

Here’s how to do it. 

Personal Inventory – Yearly 

On the first day of every new year, lock yourself into a room for a few hours and replay the previous year in your mind, and write down the most significant events (positive and negative experiences). 

This will give you a basis to measure progress on goals that were set in the previous year. 

The point is to be objective and truthful. You are trying to find out where you are at right now, which is essential to planning where you want to be in the future. And in the future you want to be your authentic self.

If you had set goals from the previous year, usually you’ll notice that some previous goals were achieved trivially early, some goals were not even attempted, some goals were failures (learning experiences) and some are still being worked on. 

Now you can split related goals into domains. I split them into the domains of Health, Wealth, Love and Happiness and make sure each domain has at least five goals for the coming year. 

Then you should craft a new budget for the year. I look at the actual income and expenses of the previous year and categorize each expense (e.g. House, Food, Healthcare, Entertainment etc). When you know how much was actually spent last year on each category, you break that down into months and weeks to see what that looks like. 

It’s always surprising to me to see the cost of car registration on a weekly basis. 

Some expense categories are going to be too high while others will be too low. In the year 2021 I found we were spending too much on eating out, money that could be otherwise used as savings and investments. 

I double checked my figures were correct and talked to Holly about it. She was able to identify some income streams and expenses that I hadn’t counted. We talked about ways we could change our habits to meet our goals for the year. 

As the year goes on, we are still sacrificing things to try and reach our goals. 

That’s what it’s all about. 

Spend some time thinking and feeling the goals you have set for the year. Do you really want to achieve this, or do you just want the outcome? 

Remembering of course that you have to put in the work, there is travel before you reach the destination. 

If you enjoy the process, you’re more likely to carry through until completion. Unless of course that the goal is so extrinsically motivating to you that you push through anyway. 

Personal Inventory – Monthly

I find it beneficial to check in once a month and take personal inventory. 

I like to set a reminder on my calendar that goes off on the first day of every month. Then I sit down and really think about what happened in the previous month, starting with the most recent events and working my way back.

Has the status of your domains Health, Wealth, Love and Happiness (or whatever your domains) changed? Do you need to adjust some things? Have you smashed some of your goals already and they need to be recalibrated?

Ultimately how you decide to take your personal inventory is up to you. How you conduct yourself in all aspects of life is up to you. What your authentic self looks like is up to you, you are the creator of your story.

Personal Inventory – Weekly

Take personal inventory at least once a week. Did you do everything you set out to do in the last week? If not, are you going to reschedule the tasks, or eliminate them?

Many choose Sunday as their day of weekly reflection. It doesn’t take long, set aside 15 minutes in a quite room with a book, sheet of paper or device and reflect on how the previous week went.

Has the status of your domains changed? What do you need to adjust? Do you need to leverage your relationships to get what you want?

These are the questions you should ask yourself if you truly want to become your authentic self.

Check in with yourself – Daily 

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

Check in with yourself every single day. Rewrite your goals each morning, or at the very least read them.

A powerful tool for achieving more is to plan tomorrow today. You can do this at any time, personally I like to plan the following work day about an hour before packing up for the day. Others recommend to plan tomorrow before lunch.

When you have planned tomorrow today, you are able to wake up, look at your list and know exactly what you have to do. It decreases the startup time and puts you straight into action.

If you aren’t planning tomorrow today, try it. It’s a powerful technique for achieving more and having a more fulfilling life. Spending time look at your actions each day will help you become your authentic self.

Find Your Purposes 

I don’t like it when people say you have to find your Purpose (singular). What they should say instead is you have to find your Purposes (plural).

The fact of the matter is, you have more than one purpose here on this Earth. If you had a singular purpose focused in growing a business in some niche, does that mean you can’t start a family as well, or that the family should somehow take a lower priority? No! 

There are so many possibilities in this world and what you do depends on what you pay attention to and move towards. 

If you don’t know your purposes yet, spend time reflecting on how you spend your time, what your innate strengths are, what you love to do, the activities that make time fly. 

I can’t tell you what your purposes are, and neither can any other blog or YouTube video. The people closest to you won’t be able to tell you either. They might be able to make great guesses based on how well they know you, but you are the person most familiar with you. The buck stops with you and you alone.

If you have spent time reflecting on this and you still don’t know your purposes, you might be focusing on yourself too much. Take this quote from Zig Ziglar: 

“You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want”

~ Zig Ziglar

We are all in this together. Everyone is growing and learning each day. Those that aren’t growing and learning are feeling isolated and lonely. Maybe your purpose is to help those kinds of people, or maybe you prefer to surround yourself with the people that have found their purpose and are “successful”. 

Some of my purposes are to raise my young family the best I can, leaving nothing on the table. Every day I am teaching my young daughter new things, and she is teaching me every day.

Something beautiful about children is that they are pure, uncorrupted, unmolded by society’s expectations. She is teaching me how to play, which is something adults tend to forget over time. 

Another of my purposes is to connect with people who feel lost and help them find their way. I deeply resonate with that and I know those people are out there because I was one of them for most of my life. If this is you, what helped me the most is learning from others. The best way to learn from others is to have them teach you. 

Find Mentors Living their Authentic Life

Being taught something in person is great, but that’s not the only way! Find a book that interests you, buy it and read it. Learn from the author.

Search online for skills you want to learn about and learn from the content that experts have put out already. When you learn from others in this way, they have no choice whether or not they are your mentor. YOU get to choose who your mentors are, and the mentors don’t have much say in it.

The first book I read after required school books was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I read the book in 2014 at age 20.

Why didn’t I start reading sooner? Because I felt lost. I felt afraid and unworthy of a better life than what I had at the time. If you can relate, this book is a classic and might be a good starting point for you. It’s about changing your perception from yourself to other people.

When you are able to see life through the eyes of other people, your world will open up with information you have never conceived of.

What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses? 

Do you know your strengths and weaknesses? If you don’t, you are making a grievous error. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is essential to success. Once you know them, you can focus on honing your strengths and mitigating your weaknesses.

The best way to find your strengths and weaknesses that I’ve found is to ask the people you spend the most time with. This probably means family, colleagues and friends. It’s a difficult and somewhat awkward exercise for both parties because you have to be open minded and be ready for criticism. Make sure you ask people at the right time.

Chances are the people you ask will readily divulge what they think your strengths are, but they will be hesitant when it comes to outlining your weaknesses. If it feels awkward for the other person to divulge your weaknesses face to face, perhaps suggest that they think about it and write it down for you.

It’s important when conducting this exercise that you use a large sample size. Much of what people describe about you will be the same across many samples, and some of it will be isolated to the few. You have to take all of this feedback onboard with an open mind and analyze it.

For example, if you have a large sample size telling you that you have a strength in creativity but a weakness in time management, they are probably right and you should take that feedback and deal with it.

But if one person tells you that you have a strength in time management and a weakness in communication, you should still analyze what they have said. It might be that they are incorrect about the strength, but they could be correct in describing a weakness that nobody else discovered because they were approaching the issue from a different perspective.

Knowing what to do about your strengths is simple and most people intuitively know already. Develop your strengths. Get really, really good at the things you are already good at. Use your strengths as leverage.

Your weaknesses are a little more difficult to deal with because you will need to find ways to work around them or develop them into strengths. I am not a naturally organized person and it took me a long time to realize that organization is a skill that can be learned. I am now passionate about being organized because I know the difference it makes in my life.

Some Relevant Principles from Ray Dalio:

• # 2.6 – Remember that weaknesses don’t matter if you find solutions.
• #2.6b – Everyone has at least one big thing that stands in the way of their success; find yours and deal with it

Look at the World Through Your Own Unique Perspective

Each individual has their own perspective which largely determines their reality.

You will never see the world in exactly the same way as somebody else, no matter how similar you are to them. This is because your individual perspective is determined by your unique set of life experiences, beliefs and values.

It’s important to realize that your perspective is just that, yours. That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily correct or incorrect, it just is.

You have to understand that other people are going to have their own outlook which will determine their world view. Just because somebody else has a different perspective to you, it doesn’t mean they are wrong.

What is important is that you are aware of your own perspective and that you understand how it affects the way you see the world. Once you are aware of your perspective, you can start to question it and look at the world from a different perspective. This is an important step in personal growth and development.

One of the best ways to understand your perspective is to ask yourself why you believe what you do. Why do you value what you value? What life experiences have led you to believe what you believe?

When you start to question your perspective, you can start to see the world in a new and different way.

Live in the Present for a More Authentic Life 

“Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.”

~ Eckhart Tolle

There really is nothing other than the present moment. The past has gone by and the future hasn’t happened.

Spending too much time in the past or future is stopping you from experience what Reality actually is – Now. Everything happens Now and there is no exception to this.

This is not to say that you should not think about the past and the future. Absolutely not. Analyzing the past is how you discover what brought you to where you are today, and imagining the future is a key component of goal setting.

But the majority of your attention should be spent in the present moment and nowhere else. Because nothing else really exists apart from this present moment. Even as I write this paragraph and you read it later, each second that goes past is gone forever and can never be recovered.

Given that time can never be recovered, how are you spending your time? Are you wasting any of it away? Surely you know that time is the most precious resource. There is a finite amount of time in your life.

You can always make more money, but you can never make more time. Every day there are 1,440 minutes and once they go by that’s it.

Every day when you wake up you are granted with 86,400 seconds. You have only one day to spend these seconds before they are gone forever. Luckily when you wake up tomorrow you will be granted another 86,400 seconds. But eventually there comes a time where you won’t wake up the next day. So spend your seconds with purpose to become your authentic self.

Practice mindfulness and other techniques of raising your awareness to stay present in the moment. It is where the beauty of life occurs, and indeed it is the only place life occurs.

Develop Meaningful Relationships 

Humans are social creatures and we need meaningful relationships to drive us into doing things. None of us can exist authentically as an individual, we need our social support system.

Without meaningful relationships, what is the point of anything? Especially during these difficult and confusing times. We would only be doing this selfishly, acting for the benefit of ourselves. This is now what authenticity means.

Try to spend time each day with family, friends or members of the community. Help enrich their lives and they will help enrich yours. Live, laugh, love as they say. But don’t do it alone. Share it with others.

Developing meaningful relationships means performing services for others, reaching out for people and truly caring about them. It means being in genuine alignment with others and truly wanting positive change for other people as well as your self.

The rewards you receive are the relationships you develop with others.

There is nothing more important in life than your relationships with others. Nothing.

Put Forward Your Best Effort Every Day 

When you put in effort every single day towards a goal, you will never go backwards.

Wake up in the morning and get after it. Whatever your thing is, put the best effort that you can into whatever it is you do.

If you don’t know what your thing is, spend more time developing your purpose and setting goals for yourself. This is a critical component for being your authentic self and you can’t do much without having targets to aim for.

Merely cruising through life with mediocre inputs will result in mediocre outputs. But you don’t want mediocre outputs, otherwise you wouldn’t be this far into the article. Even if you are just bored at work, you could be reading something else.

Think about what it means to put effort in. It means changing your mode from consumption to production. It means moving from a state of passiveness to a state of activeness.

“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.”

~ Thomas Jefferson

I used to think that luck was something that happened to other people. I would see people winning the lottery and think, “That will never be me.” But then I started reading about how many of the most successful people in the world are actually self-made. They worked hard to get where they are today. And I realized that luck is something that you make for yourself. The harder you work, the more luck you will have.

Don’t Take Things Too Personally 

Life will inevitably throw things at you to test if you are worthy of the life you are seeking. People will judge you, talk about you behind your back, and maybe even try to bring you down. It’s all part of the journey.

Trying to control what other people think or say about you is a recipe for disaster. It will only make you more stressed and anxious. The best thing you can do is focus on your own journey and let go of what other people think.

The most important thing is to not take things too personally. When you can detach yourself from the outcome, you will be able to see things more clearly and make better decisions.

Remember, it’s not about you. It’s about the person or situation that is causing you pain. If they are happy, then that is their business. You don’t have to take on their pain as your own.

Have Patience

The journey to finding your authentic self is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. It takes time to figure out who you are and what you want in life. Be patient with yourself and trust that the answers will come in due time.

The greatest rewards of life all come from compound interest. This is true for wealth, relationships and building on skills. You need to be patient and trust that the process will work.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

~ Lao Tzu

Taking that first step is always the hardest. But once you do, the journey becomes a little easier. Just keep taking one step at a time and eventually you will reach your destination.

When you put in the work and have patience, good things will come eventually. It will take time for your work and your ideas to spread and be shared. Trust the process and put in the work and you will see success.

Be Persistent

There will be times when you feel like you are never going to find your way. But it is important to be persistent. Don’t give up on yourself. Trust that the answers will come if you keep moving forward.

“If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.”

~ Unknown

Along the same lines as the above, if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting the results you’ve always got.

Everyone should be asking for more out of life but they need to be willing to work for it. And when you work for something there will be difficulties, setbacks and failures.

It’s inevitable. The only thing you can do is push through it. What are your other options? You aren’t considering quitting, are you? Quitting is not an option.

Quitters never win and winners never quit.

Of course, there’s a difference between deciding something is no longer the right fit for you, and quitting. Deciding you need to change paths takes self reflection and time. It will feel right.

On the contrary, you won’t feel good about quitting. When the time comes, you’ll know the difference.

When you feel the urge to quit, you know you are on the right path. It means fear is starting to set in. That’s a good thing. Be persistent and push through the pain, that’s what is required to reap any kind of rewards from the work.

Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. That’s where the magic happens. When you are willing to try new things, you will be surprised at what you are capable of.

Have Faith in Your True Self

The most important thing is to have faith in yourself. This means trusting that you are on the right path and that you are good enough to achieve what you want. Believe that you can achieve anything you set your mind to. When you have faith in yourself, anything is possible.

“You can do it if you believe you can”

~ Napoleon Hill

“Whether You Think You Can, or Think You Can’t … You’re Right”

~Henry Ford

How can you achieve something if you don’t believe you can do it? If you are not confident that you can do something, self-doubt will creep in and stop you right in your tracks.

If you believe you can do it, you can. So long as you are willing to put in the work that’s needed and have the courage to push through problems as they arise.

~ C. JoyBell C.

You are the only one who can control your life. Don’t let anyone else hold you back. Believe in yourself and go after your dreams.

“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

~ Steve Jobs

Don’t waste your time living someone else’s life. You only have one life to live, so make it count. Follow your heart and do what you love.

“If you can dream it, you can do it.”

~ Walt Disney

If you can dream it, you can do it. Don’t let anyone else tell you what you can and can’t do. You are the only one who knows what you are capable of.

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

~ Steve Jobs

If you don’t love what you do, you will never be great at it. You need to be passionate about your work if you want to achieve greatness.

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

~ Oscar Wilde

You need to be true to yourself. Don’t try to be someone you’re not. Be confident in who you are and what you have to offer the world.

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”

~ Albert Einstein

Your happiness should not be dependent on other people or things. If you want to be happy, you need to tie your happiness to a goal. Set goals for yourself and work towards them. When you reach your goals, you will be happy.

Maintain Gratitude

One final tip I have for living an authentic life is to be grateful for what you have. It is easy to take things for granted. But when you are grateful for the good in your life, it will help you to see the world in a more positive light.

Research suggests that when you are grateful for what you have, your mind then becomes more open to possibilities of what else is to come. This is likely because while your self awareness is directed on interoception (the internal landscape), you are able to feel self compassion, self love and completeness, which opens you up to more possibilities.

Integrating a gratitude practice into your life is one mental exercise that will make a huge difference in your quest to living authentically. All authentic people maintain some type of gratitude practice and practice it each day.

If you don’t practice gratitude but already have an existing meditation practice, integrate them together.

“Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

~ Melody Beattie

When you are grateful, your past will make sense, you will have peace in the present, and you will be able to see a bright future.

When you are grateful for what you have, it will seem like enough. You will be content with what you have and you won’t feel the need to have more.

“Gratitude opens the door to…the power, the wisdom, the creativity of the universe. You open yourself up to more relationships, more money, more love, more joy.”

~ Oprah Winfrey

When you are grateful, you open yourself up to all that the universe has to offer. You will attract more relationships, more money, more love, and more joy into your life.

Conclusion

When you live an authentic life, you are true to yourself and you are grateful for what you have. You don’t care what other people think of you and you set your own goals.

If you want to be happy, tie your happiness to a goal. Be passionate about your work and be confident in who you are. These are just a few tips that will help you to live an authentic life.

I hope this article was helpful and that you enjoyed reading it. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. I would love to hear from you!