Living True to Yourself

Personal well-being is connected to ensuring a positive connection between the mental, emotional, relational, spiritual and physical aspects of our lives.  It is also connected to having alignment between our thoughts, words and actions and our true selves.  When we develop habits that allow us, often without any conscience, to say one thing and do another or to think one thought and say something completely opposite, then not only will we lead without integrity but we will damage our own internal stability and rootedness.  I am not suggesting here that we should always blurt out exactly what we think and take no cognisance of how that might damage another person, no.  What I am saying is that if we get into the habit of deliberately pretending to think, speak or act in a way that is not congruent with our true selves, then we will create an internal dissonance that in time will take its toll.  To illustrate this just think of the world of celebrities.  Being in the public eye often forces people of fame into a game of pretending to be something they are not, simply because they believe this is what is expected of them.  They live one life on a very public front stage while on the back stage they lose their sense of well-being because they know their front stage is a sham.  The long-term impact of that is often despair, depression, addiction and for an increasing number, a life cut short in its prime.  

Living true to yourself and your inner convictions and values will help you live a rooted life where you will not sway left and right according to the latest fad or demand.  Instead, you will become someone who can be relied upon as consistent, fair and loyal – some of the key attributes that people recognise in leaders they want to follow.  It is not just celebrities who can suffer from the disconnection from their true selves.  I have seen this in a myriad of leaders too.  Indeed, the worst forms of manipulation in leadership often stem from this.   I sometimes wonder whether events like the financial crisis of 2007-08 would have been avoided if those who led the banks and financial services companies at the centre of the crisis had been challenged to live true to themselves.  Sometimes the systems we become a part of suck us into their cortex of deception and blind us to the dissonance between our true selves and the actions we take.