A sad person wearing a hood on the street living an inauthentic life

Have you ever felt like you’re living someone else’s life instead of your own? What if the key to becoming your ideal self was simply being true to who you really are?

Mike Bayer explores the profound connection between authenticity and personal fulfillment in his book Best Self. His insights reveal how living an inauthentic life keeps people trapped in patterns of dissatisfaction and prevents them from reaching their full potential.

Discover how to break free from societal conditioning, reconnect with your true self, and finally become the person you’ve always wanted to be.

Your True Self Is Your Ideal Self

According to Bayer, being true to yourself is key to becoming the person you aspire to be. He explains that your true self encapsulates your core values and deepest passions, which form the very foundation of your ideal life. When you stop living an inauthentic life, you’ll naturally embody the person you want to be and gain the freedom and confidence to pursue what truly fulfills you.

(Shortform note: Research supports Bayer’s argument that being true to yourself helps you become your ideal self. According to psychologist Carl Rogers, you perceive yourself negatively when your true self and authentic behavior don’t match your ideal self. This blocks your natural drive toward self-actualization (fulfillment of your full potential). In other words, you must live up to your own expectations or you’ll lack the self-esteem you need to grow. Aligning your behavior with your core values and deepest passions, on the other hand, allows you to naturally progress toward becoming who you want to be.)

What Prevents You From Being True to Yourself?

Why is it often so difficult to live in alignment with your true self if it’s so beneficial to do so? According to Bayer, from a very young age, you’ve been conditioned to suppress your true self in favor of social acceptance. He explains that throughout your life, you’ve been influenced by the beliefs, behaviors, and expectations of your family, peers, and the media you’ve been exposed to. You learned early on that you gain social acceptance and approval from conforming to a certain way of thinking and behaving—and that straying from the norm often results in negative consequences such as rejection or disapproval.

Since the negative consequences of being socially unacceptable felt unpleasant and painful, your younger self unconsciously chose to override your innate desires and inclinations to keep your true self hidden and maintain a sense of social belonging. Over time, as you repeatedly ignored your true nature, you became increasingly disconnected from it. As a result, you might not even fully recognize or know who you really are anymore.

(Shortform note: Research explains why you might suppress your true self to gain social acceptance: Humans have an inherent need to feel connected to others. When you were young, this need drove you to unconsciously internalize and conform to the expectations of your social groups. As an adult, this need leads you to gravitate toward people who are similar to you—because this similarity makes you feel more securely connected. However, while this may make you feel a sense of belonging, it makes it even harder to figure out who your true self is. Surrounding yourself with people who behave the same way you’ve been conditioned to behave only reinforces your patterns of conformity.)

How Misalignment With Your True Self Fosters Dissatisfaction

According to Bayer, when you don’t have a strong connection to your core values and passions, you miss out on the internal cues that guide you to make choices aligned with your true self. This lack of guidance leads you to make misaligned choices, whose results leave you feeling dissatisfied and unfulfilled. For example, you might choose a career that feels meaningless or engage in relationships with incompatible partners.

(Shortform note: Tony Robbins (Awaken the Giant Within) expands on how misalignment leads to dissatisfaction: You may have unconsciously accumulated other people’s values without considering if they’re right for you. These values may conflict with your authentic values, and conflicting values leave you feeling torn about what you really want. For example, you may feel confused about whether to prioritize security or independence and, as a result, struggle in relationships because you simultaneously desire commitment and distance from your partner. This struggle will continue until you consciously decide what values are important to a fulfilling relationship.)

While the obvious fix for alleviating this discomfort is to reconnect with your true self, Bayer points out that most people don’t realize that this is an option—years of making misaligned choices cause you to forget that you even have a true self to reconnect with. Instead, you develop unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as harmful or unproductive habits, to numb your discomfort.

Bayer argues that the problem with relying on such coping mechanisms is that they only reinforce your disconnection from your true self: The more you rely on them to alleviate your discomfort, the more you fail to address the root cause of your dissatisfaction, which then fuels an even greater sense of dissatisfaction and disappointment. This creates a downward spiral that becomes increasingly difficult to break free from.

(Shortform note: While many people associate negative coping mechanisms with destructive behaviors like excessive drinking or drug use, keep in mind that even seemingly positive behaviors like exercising or being productive can become unhealthy coping mechanisms. When reviewing whether your behaviors point to a misalignment with your true self, be sure to examine your healthier behaviors and carefully consider whether you’re using them to excess or depending on them to push down uncomfortable feelings.)

Living an Inauthentic Life? This Might Be the Reason Why

Katie Doll

Somehow, Katie was able to pull off her childhood dream of creating a career around books after graduating with a degree in English and a concentration in Creative Writing. Her preferred genre of books has changed drastically over the years, from fantasy/dystopian young-adult to moving novels and non-fiction books on the human experience. Katie especially enjoys reading and writing about all things television, good and bad.

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