As outlined in my last article, Stephen Joseph sees authenticity as a sum of the 3 main components: knowing yourself, owning yourself, and being yourself.
Below is an excerpt of the book as a quick reminder of what each component represents:
“Step 1 – know yourself … refers to the process of looking deeply within yourself , to uncover your barriers to authenticity and to begin to dismantle them.
Step 2 – own yourself Approach your life with a sense of responsibility for your thoughts, emotions and actions, and the directions you are taking in life.
Step 3 – be yourself … encourages you to begin to put your new learnings into action and to practise new ways of being in the world.”
Part III of “Authentic” offers 10 exercises for each step (30 total that is).
In this article I would like to share 3 of them – those that I found the most insightful and most representative of each step.
As always, I highly recommend to give a chance to the book itself as it provides the full experience and the actual step-by-step journey guidance.
With that in mind, let’s go!
Exercise #1: Use the miracle question to know yourself
This exercise is hands down my favorite because it provides the endless possibilities of self-discovery.
It goes like this:
“1.Imagine you go to sleep tonight and you wake tomorrow morning. During the night a miracle happened and, when you wake up, your most positive dreams for your future have come true. Remember, a miracle has occurred, so you are waking up to your life as you would ideally like it to be… To help you be specific about what the real world changes would be for you, think about your answers to the following questions:
- How do you feel when you wake?
- What is the first thing you will do?
- Your best friend arrives. Immediately, they notice that things have improved. What is it that they will have noticed?
- What happens next in your day?
2. Give a blow-by-blow account of the whole day of your ideal life when everything is just as you would ideally want it to be.
3. Would that be a typical day?
4. What would you be doing on the same day a week later?”
Although this exercise may seem like another very popular one “Describe what you would do if money (time / skills / health) was not an issue”, it goes way deeper.
In fact, it immerses you in the world of you.
And if you give it some time, it will start painting details you might have not quite expected to see.
Joseph says that often people would start this exercise imagining having more money or a larger house.
“…but when pushed to say more they may struggle to know how they would actually spend their time.”
The beauty of this exercise is that you don’t necessarily need a piece of paper and a quiet room to do it (although it works better if you write it down). You can daydream while doing dishes or sitting in the traffic, or just give it a few minutes when you are closing your eyes before falling asleep.
Just yesterday I read an HBR article from the Peter Drucker where he was describing the importance of understanding one’s strengths, ways of working, and values in order to boost one’s performance (if you have a chance, check it out here – link).
But what I found missing there was the “Why?” question.
Surely, our values tell us our why but more in a sense of the reason why, not the purpose why.
The miracle question (if you spend some time on it) will tell you why you might be excited to jump out your bed in the morning or drive somewhere after you leave your house.
A friend of mine recently asked me: “imagine it’s morning, your daughter and husband are in the daycare and at work respectively, you are done with the morning routine, you jump into your car and you go… where?”
And my first thought was “to Starbucks to get some coffee.”
“And then do what?”
“Sit down and write.”
Exercise #2: Look for the grain of truth to own yourself
This one is a stinky one and this is why it’s so good.
It is also very simple:
“Next time you feel criticized by someone, ask yourself if there is any truth in this, no matter how smll. Learn what the truth is. Then ditch the rest of the criticism.”
Oh the pain of negative feedback!
Even the most well-meaning one coming from the closest people we trust fully and completely can hurt a bunch.
Now imagine being criticized by someone who actually wants to hurt your feelings!
Over years I came up with a simple test for the negative feedback I receive.
If it makes me uncomfortable (either as in “yeah, you’re right, I should’ve dealt with it by now” or as in “it can’t be true, how could one say it about me?”), then there is truth to it.
If I feel nothing, then it’s not about me (works for the positive feedback too – really good remedy against flattery!)
Now, here is a grain of salt within the “grain of truth” exercise.
The truth you might discover does not always match the critique itself.
Let me give you an example.
A couple days ago, one of my LinkedIn connections posted a screenshot of his interaction with a LinkedIn troll (i.e. a person trying to engage you in a conversation to provoke your negative reactions). The screenshot was showing the troll’s comment saying something along the lines of “why are you posting this garbage of an article! Don’t you hate wasting your time on nothing?” The post’s author said under the screenshot: “I used to react poorly when reading comments like this but now I just laugh at them.”
Let’s do the “grain of truth” exercise here.
If the author had a reaction to the comments like this before, does it mean that the author did indeed post “garbage articles” and felt uncomfortable about them?
The answer can be “yes”.
But the answer can also be “no, but he wanted to write better articles and felt insecure about it”.
Whatever your “grain of truth” might be, it helps to look clearly in the eye of your discomfort. You might discover you are not as bad as you are worried you are. And if you are, then you might discover it is easier to change once you are honest about what needs that change in the first place.
Exercise #3: Practice self-acceptance to be yourself
It is hard to be yourself if you do not accept who you are.
And this is precisely why, to me, this exercise is fundamental for the being yourself step.
“We need to learn to use compassionate language with ourselves. Notice when you think in terms of what you ‘should’, ‘ought’, or ‘have’ to do. There are times for these words, but a lot of the time they could be replaced with phrases like ‘it makes sense to’ or ‘now is a good time to’. Respect your own autonomy in life and don’t be the person who restricts your own freedom to choose. Promise yourself to pay attention to when you hear yourself saying to yourself that you ‘should’, ‘ought’ or ‘have’ to do something and question whether that really is the case.”
As you can see from the above description, this exercise can take between 10 seconds (saying your promise out loud) and your entire life (actually acting on it).
It’s possible that self-acceptance is such a tough task precisely because we skip the know-yourself and own-yourself parts so we are not exactly sure what is that we are supposed to accept.
People around us, societal norms, systems we are a part of – all of those blend with us over the years to the point it is impossible to distinguish where our own voice begins and where it ends.
At some point, either due to a strong inner impulse or an external traumatizing event, we push ourselves to break free and start seeking that true voice of ours.
And this is when Joseph gives us a word of caution that I also take as an encouragement.
“You might be tempted to rush into new situations, but my advice would be to work through the book, think deeply about the exercises, take them step by step and realize that authenticity is a moment-by-moment journey not a final destination.”
In the next article, we will complete our deep-dive journey into “Authentic” exploring how we can nurture authenticity with our children and keep being true to ourselves even when our work environment is toxic. We will also answer the question why authenticity can be dangerous. Subscribe not to miss the next article!
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