How to be myself and not be afraid of your own identity

Many of the problems that generate psychological distress suffered by people in Western countries have to do with attempts to make us pass for who we are not. Social pressure, which leads us to try to offer an idealized image of ourselves, completely hampers any attempt to behave spontaneously and true to one's own identity.

That is why, although it sounds paradoxical, many people wonder... how to be myself Let's see several tips to lose the bad habit of hiding between layers of a personality that is not ours.

• Related article: "The main theories of personality"

How to be myself and bet on my own identity

Despite the fact that society is a place of cooperation, it is also true that these links of collaboration and mutual benefit are not always very clear and the threat of breaking them is always lurking.

Perhaps that is why we are always so worried about what they will say; in an environment where our former allies may be our present enemies, our image personal has a lot of value, since it is something that defines us as individuals and that does not depend on anyone other than us.

As a consequence, we try to create a public version of ourselves that can be liked by others, leaving aside, in part, if that forces us to adopt certain impostures in our habits and in the way of relating that we usually adopt. In the next few lines we will see how this mentality of sacrificing everything for that idealized image can be combated and how to be yourself embracing your own identity.

1. Reconnect with your hobbies

We must let our hobbies and physical and intellectual interests develop. The activities that occupy us a lot of time should not be mainly due to what others expect of us.

Otherwise, we will be wasting a lot of potential. Not only because we could be very good at something if we gain experience in it, but because these activities done for pleasure, even if we don't As it may seem, they can enrich us a lot culturally, but we will not earn as much if they are hobbies that do not excite us and that we do purely commitment.

2. Surround yourself with people you feel comfortable with

Being constantly surrounded by people who judge us negatively at the slightest stridency for our part is a bad decision, since, whether we realize it or not, it molds us at the mercy of its expectations.

It is better to meet open-minded people, capable of accepting an idea as simple as the following: everyone doesn't have to be cut from the same cloth.

Of course, we must be careful that this type of comfortable friendships do not end up becoming social circles in which everyone thinks the same and holds the same vision of things. That is not only not intellectually stimulating: it makes us less reasonable and creative. The ideal is to expose ourselves to diversity because that enriches us and even allows us to discover aspects of ourselves that we did not know.

3. accept your contradictions

Nobody has a completely consistent and defined personality. Ambiguities and uncertainty is what makes us not totally predictable. It is inevitable that certain situations produce tensions in us, that make us doubt about which option best represents us, and that we regret certain past decisions. That does not nullify the fact that we can behave in an authentic way, being true to ourselves.

4. Embrace assertive communication

If we are constantly hiding what we want and what interests us, that will end up enslaving us. It's no use being yourself when no one is looking; you have to bet on authenticity practically always.

• You may be interested: "Assertiveness: 5 basic habits to improve communication"

5. value honesty

Being frank with others can be difficult at first, but it usually has a knock-on effect; It makes it easier for those around us to also be honest with us. For this reason, betting on honesty generates spaces in which it is much easier to be oneself, and in the long run that leads us to be authentic almost without realizing that we are breaking all kinds of limits that in the past came to weigh down our way of socializing with others.

6. demystify others

To stop trying to be idealized by others, you have to stop idealizing them; no one deserves to make all kinds of sacrifices just to please them.

Getting it is partly a matter of working on self-esteem and realizing that we too, if we wanted to, would be capable of negatively judging others for all kinds of arbitrary reasons if we wanted to, but that we can realize that that doesn't make any sense and that, consequently, someone who does that with us obeys a poor criterion of how things are persons.

7. Let go of dependency-based relationships

Relationships characterized by dependency are a burden for personal development, in addition to generating many sources of discomfort or even exposing us to the dynamics of psychological abuse. Therefore, you have to know how to recognize them and "disconnect" from them.

Bibliographic references:

• Castello, B.J. (2005). Emotional dependence: Characteristics and treatment. Madrid: Publishing Alliance.
• Ellis, A. (2001). Feeling better, getting better, staying better. Impact Publishers. Judge, T.A.; Bonus, J.E. (2001). Relationship of core self-evaluations traits—self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability—with job satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(1): p. 80 - 92.
• Olsen, J. M.; Breckler, S. J.; Wiggins, E. c. (2008). Social Psychology Alive. Toronto: Thomson Nelson.
• Rotter, J. (1954). Social learning and clinical psychology. Englewood Cliffs. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.