On authenticity and nobody liking me.

I watched this video last week that had me laughing hysterically for about 20 minutes. Ok, I lie I didn’t just watch it once, I watched it about 5 times in a row. It’s hilarious, and at the point where she starts waving her hands around going “why does nobody like me? Why does nobody think I’m pretty? Why does nobody like the things that I like?" I pretty much lose it.  (warning language)

Thing is, I have had moments where I’ve looked at myself, and at my life or work, and thought pretty much the same thing. Especially when its so easy to look at someone more successful than you and start making negative comparisons. Even with my Facebook page, particularly when I first started out, I was guilty of looking at other people’s pages who are a million times bigger than mine and thinking to myself. “why does nobody liiiiiike me?” And sometimes there’s a tiny voice who whispers in a nasty way “if you were more like that other person then more people would pay attention to you”. Sometimes it’s really hard to trust that who you are will be good enough to get you where you want to go.  And I proved it to myself too when I started following advice from from bigger and more successful pages, and as a result, my page lost its uniqueness.

This is something that we have all done at one point or another, taken on aspects of something or someone else in the hope that it will make us more popular, more successful, or more loved. I know from my own experience that when I’ve done that it’s turned out to be a complete disaster. And I’ve watched so many other people work their way into huge and unhappy messes by doing the same.

Trying to take other peoples uniqueness and copy it, is like turning yourself into a cheap designer knock off. It may look the same, but it’s never going to be the same. And I started to wonder at one point, if I'm not being myself, then how can I say people like me anyway... they don't even know me!

The problem is that by changing who you are to fit an idea that you have of what people want you to be, you lose something really vital.

You lose sight of that magic thing that people are drawn to.

Your authentic self.

A couple years ago I was preparing to sing something at a competition, and I was worried that it was going to be a disaster because it was a song that has been done to death, when my coach said to me “Yes, they have heard it a million times, but they have never hear it sung by YOU”. She didn’t mean that my version was particularly exceptional or different, but it was mine. My interpretation, my voice, my spirit. The same is true of my blog and my work. there are hundreds of thousands of blogger and coaches out there, but there is only one who is me.

It doesn’t matter how many other people do the same thing that we do, or have the same goals, interests, hobbies, profession etc. What makes us remarkable is that little bit of something special that no one else can copy, and it’s that little something that draws people in.

The more genuine you are, the more people genuinely respond to you. And who you really are IS what is so incredible about you.