Why You Need to Find Your Authentic Voice

Today, I’d like to encourage you to find your authentic voice.

For something to be your passion, it has to be related to your own energy.

And yet, it’s so easy to get distracted by the ideas or desires of others. This can take many different forms:

• Maybe you’re not pursuing your dreams because your significant other doesn’t approve of it.
  
• Or perhaps you continue doing what you’ve been doing (instead of exploring what excites you) because you don’t want to disappoint your parents.
  
• You also might have people around you who constantly asking you for help, leaving you with little time to work on your passion projects.

All of these are…

How can you express yourself authentically and passionately, when you have a hard time differentiating between yourself and others ❔

The truth is that you can’t.

We need boundaries.

Without knowing where you end and someone else begins, you might find yourself living someone else’s dream, expressing someone else’s thoughts or doing someone else’s work — which typically feels unsatisfactory. 😞

It also deprives the world of your uniqueness.

All of this is why it’s important to…

We typically don’t get taught how to set emotional boundaries. And, that’s a problem because as Kris Gage points out, “pretty much the only people with healthy emotional boundaries are the ones who have conscientiously and deliberately put in the emotion work to build them.”

If you have difficulties distinguishing yourself and your own voice from those around you, do what you need to do to become clearer on what belongs to you, and what belongs to others.

When it comes to your relationship with others, it’s helpful to start saying no.

Finding your authentic voice is not just about saying no to unreasonable demands that other people place on you, it’s also about saying yes to yourself.

And, we need to say yes to all of who we are. As Camille DePutter put it, “there is not one ‘authentic’ you. Not one authentic voice. Not one authentic story. We don’t just have one true story of our lives, we have many. We don’t just have one truth, we have many contradictory truths, lies, and somewhere-in-betweens that make us who we are.”

With all that being said, let’s move on to…

Grab a pen and paper. 📝Then, take a moment to go through the following process.

(If you want to get the most out of this or if you're afraid of getting stuck, get the "Taking Action Worksheets" and begin by filling those out.)

• Write down 3 things you sometimes do that you don’t really want to do
  For instance: “I often continue talking with my chatty colleagues when I really want to get back to work on my projects. Also, I actually don’t enjoy my volunteer work anymore. I don’t get enough appreciation for all the work I put in. I also check my emails way to often and respond to most emails right away, regardless of how important and urgent they are. That really makes me less productive and breaks up my workflow.” 💪
  
  
• Pick one of these things
  For instance: “Let’s begin with my chatty colleagues.”
  
  
• Brainstorm options 💭
  Brainstorm what actions you could take to get yourself out of that situation. For instance: “If I really need to focus, I could close my door to make it less likely that one of them will come into my room. I can also simply say that I’m busy and that I want to get back to work. That feels a bit uncomfortable but I think it would be good for me.”
  
  
• Pick one of these options and start taking action
  For instance: “So, the next time I will find myself in a drawn-out conversation with them, I will just tell them that I want to get back to work.”

To connect more deeply with your passion and purpose, find your authentic voice (or voices).

While this can be a lifelong journey, the better you get at discerning the boundaries between yourself and others, the easier it will be for you to connect with your own passion and voice.

To begin, schedule some alone time and explore who you are.

Also, start by saying “no” more often to requests that don’t feel good to you. This will help you clarify which actions don’t feel congruent for you which conversely can allow you to identify the ones that do.

And, it also allows you to practice expressing yourself in the world.