KEEPING YOU REAL: EMBRACE YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF.
We have just celebrated Memorial Day honoring those people who helped make our country a country and we are approaching JULY 4th to celebrate our independence of those endeavors.
Staying true to who you are is a challenge, there must be a consistant awareness of the noises in our life, pressures to be this, finish that, work all the time and the list goes on. Seeking your inner peace and true living in the journey of life can be scary but so is constantly striving to be in the fast lane.
Definition of Authenticity: It is acting in a manner consistent with your beliefs. It is the quality of being genuine. Authenticity leads to trust.
“Despite whatever you have achieved, whatever power you have amassed, or whatever knowledge and wisdom you possess people want and need you to be “REAL”
3 Significate Characteristics of Authenticity
1. Attitude of Gratitude
Having an attitude of gratitude means making a habit to express thankfulness and appreciation in all parts of your life on a regular basis, for both the big things and small things.
In the book, “How Full Is Your Bucket”? authors Tom Rath and Donald Clifton, Ph.D. convey the “theory of the dipper and the bucket.” Most of us have an invisible bucket constantly being emptied or filled, depending on what others say or do to you. When your bucket is full, you feel great. When your bucket is empty, you feel small and unimportant. you also have an invisible dipper. When you use the dipper to fill other people’s buckets-to express gratitude to stimulate positive emotions-you also fill your own bucket.
2. Leading with the Heart
When you lead with heart, others are sure to be touched. This quality has many positive outcomes in your personal and business lives because it shows how much you care. Despite whatever you have achieved, whatever power you have amassed, or whatever knowledge and wisdom you possess, people want and need you to be “real”.
The best way to accomplish this is to blur the lines between “professional” and “personal” and truly care. When leading with heart, you become a better leader, a servant leader.
In our businesses today, we are moving and reacting to our environments far more quickly than ever before. This increase in speed is allowing for tremendous gains and many new opportunities. Would you agree that this speed has also created a work force that is increasingly confused, disenfranchised, and out of touch with their own fundamental values of the organizations they work for?
What a mission-critical in our businesses today is a new perspective, one that is focused on the most basic and important of human values-compassion, trust, empathy, forgiveness, understanding, and love. Lead with the values that come from the heart, not from a place of logic.
3. Connected relationships through Emotional Intelligence (EI)
A connected relationship happens when you take a genuine interest in the other person. The connection grows even stronger when emotion is involved. An emotional connection is a bundle of subjective feelings that come together to Crete a bond between two people. It is the glue that holds relationships together.
While you may have a gift for creating emotionally charged relationships from the get-go, for many it takes time and energy to create and maintain a connected relationship. The longer the relationship lasts, the more important it becomes to put extra work into staying connected. As the exhilaration and excitement of a new relationship wear off, and the regular routine sets in, extra effort is required. Think of it this way: The silver tea set is shiny only if you continue to polish it. If you don’t, it becomes dull and loses that special shine.
The authentic you demands emotional intelligence (EI). It is a key building block in developing your self-awareness and self-confidence, and it is essential that you have both qualities. E I is your ability to recognize how others feel to enhance the level of trust and respect in the workplace.
What we are discovering, is that in fake relationships…no one is “keeping it real.” Once that bigger, better deal or relationship comes along, you or I are out. Its a tough lesson to learn, but in the end, you will be better if you can grasp that fact.
Think of the person or persons who did inspire you to be you. To be true to yourself and your gifts. They keep us climbing, they allow us to appreciate our unique abilities and guide us back to our core values when we stray the course. These are truly precious friends who don’t want see us trying harder and harder to prove or please others to experience the loss of self-worth just to try and fit in. You matter and you are real and very much needed.
Be authentic, be real, be you.
Learn more and join us at balancenstreagth.com where we learn to develop our mental and physical self.
