Want to find your authentic voice? Stop trying!
How the pressure for authenticity is making us all phoneys.
Getting started is the hardest part…
I’m at an event for women in business and talk soon turns to social media. It’s everyone’s biggest anxiety. My shoulders loosen a little, at least it’s not just me. My strategy - I attach less importance to it than perhaps I should, using ambivalence to defend the fact that I clearly don’t know what I’m doing. But it seems to be the number one drain on time, productivity and self-confidence for all, myself included.
There’s a lot required of us online these days. We need to be individual, engaging, relevant, and popular, all within a carefully created capsule called ‘authentic’.
How can this be possible? No wonder it’s tying people in knots.
To curate a self-image is inauthentic by definition. It’s a manufactured self. The pressure we apply to this fruitless quest only intensifies the vicious circle. We want validation in numbers that we are ‘getting it right’.
Imagine yourself as a child. There is nothing more authentic than a small infant. They know what they want in the moment and never question their change of heart. They try out different tactics to get what they want. They play dress-up and have fun with their look. They are fearlessly expressive until (sadly) taught the potential consequences of breaking social norms.
What we supposedly hail as ‘authentic’ is the zero-fucks model that a child inhabits naturally. But our adult brain is so afraid of rejection that we apply investigation and hesitation that a child would never bother themselves with. We’ve immediately taken all the fun out of it.
It can be a daunting prospect, but an ‘authentic self’ is one that’s in the moment, undefined by external influence. It can learn and grow and evolve, but it is fluid not rigid. And it’s yours. All yours!
Easier said than done? Of course. But we were all children once. There’s an inner child energy in there somewhere that want you to dial down the fucks to zero, worry less, and play more!
The Spin
Your own voice (literally) comes from within, so it’s not something you can find outside of yourself.
Getting older doesn’t mean you have all the answers - in fact, there’s a lot that we can learn from our younger selves.
If you want to find your niche, your style, your look, you have to experiment. And experimenting means getting it wrong before you get it right. So be playful and have some fun trying things out.
Adding more weight
See what you think of this piece from The San Fransisco Chronicle on cultural authenticity. The discussion is not a heavily weighted one.
I liked this interview with Willow Smith on the importance of freedom to be yourself.
And this article on the trappings of ‘stiff thinking’.
I love anything with Jameela Jamil as I fully respect her admission of making mistakes and her refusal to let it derail her cause for social betterment. I enjoyed this episode of Angela Scanlon’s Thanks a Million and regularly listen to her I Weigh podcast.
Option to go deeper
Think of 5 different fantasy characters you would love to be. Why would you choose them?
There can be exhilaration in the escapism of adopting another persona. Often we are drawn to qualities that we hide within us, unable to express them to the outside world. How would you feel as that person? What would you do differently? What advice might they give you?
The Wind Down
I’ve been loving Shappi Khorsandi’s book, Nina Is Not OK - and Nina’s little sister Katie is pure child energy we could all aspire to!
Take inspiration from Emily Dickinson played by Hailee Steinfeld who can even make the 19th century look bad-ass!