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Why authenticity is essential for growing your business
“Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It’s about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen.”
People are tired of seeing perfect people and perfect business owners all the time. Everybody knows that it’s not possible to be perfect. Even the most successful people have many struggles that they should overcome every single day. But it’s their fears, pain, struggles, insecurities, and anxieties that make them special and their journey unique and beautiful.
And by trying to suppress these feelings and by trying to show up as perfect you create a huge barrier between you and your audience.
Real authenticity is all about imperfections, it’s the ability to embrace all those imperfections, be open about them, and be able to be a peace with them. This attracts people and makes them fall in love with you and what you do. It’s exactly what will make people relate to you, and choose you because they can relate to your story, your struggles or beliefs.
Be yourself, and be willing to become uncomfortable sometimes
As a small business or a creative, it’s very easy to start comparing yourself to other successful people in your industry. Especially when you just starting. You go on the internet and search for people to get inspired, to find some new idea. But several hours later you’re still researching, and want you it or not, you start comparing your business and yourself to others. It’s how our brain works. And it makes you feel miserable and hopeless and you don’t take any action in your own business.
Then you have another idea to copy and do the same thing as other ”successful people” in your niche. There is nothing wrong with getting inspired or make research on what is working today. But there can be a problem in finding the balance between a business strategy, trends, and what feels like an authentic self. Because when you don’t find your way to express your ideas, and values, it’s getting hard to enjoy the work.
From my own experience I can say that you need to do much deeper work on your values, find out who you’re, what are you standing for, what matters to you, what you enjoy doing and how do you want to communicate all that with your audience. This deep, personal work will help to uncover your authenticity, communicate it in the right way, and attract the right people to work with.
You need to be willing to get uncomfortable, to dig very deep into yourself to discover your true essence and authenticity. You may learn a lot of new things about yourself.
When I first started my language mentoring business, I had really hard times with all this. I didn’t know how I wanted to show up, I didn’t want to be vulnerable, I didn’t want people to know about my origin, and the language I teach isn’t my native language. But it’s a part of my story, it’s who I’m – a Ukrainian who lives in France. I overcame so many struggles to finally be comfortable and speak English and French. So why hide it, and don’t just embrace, and share my struggles with others? At the end of the day, we all are human beings and have the same struggles.
Because of all that I tried to copy other language mentors, and use their strategies, but It has never felt like me, and I had so much struggle to show up, create content, and stay consistent. My content was generic and impersonal. I wanted to appeal and please everybody.
Only when I made a deeply personal work, decided to show what I enjoyed, and even discovered some other passions like business, social media, and web design, did the content creation become fun. It’s so important to enjoy the process!
So how can you apply this to your business and what benefits you can have?
People are tired of seeing perfect people and perfect business owners all the time. Everybody knows that it’s not possible to be perfect. Even the most successful people have many struggles that they should overcome every single day. But it’s their fears, pain, struggles, insecurities, and anxieties that make them special and their journey unique and beautiful.
And by trying to suppress these feelings and by trying to show up as perfect you create a huge barrier between you and your audience.
Real authenticity is all about imperfections, it’s the ability to embrace all those imperfections, be open about them, and be able to be a peace with them. This attracts people and makes them fall in love with you and what you do. It’s exactly what will make people relate to you, and choose you because they can relate to your story, your struggles or beliefs.
By trying to be somebody else you will attract the wrong people
When you’re trying to be perfect, to show up as somebody you’re not you will attract the wrong people to work with. People who are basically not your ideal client. And I can guarantee that you won’t enjoy working with these people, even if you make a lot of money.
It’s okay not to be liked by everybody, even to be disliked by somebody. We cannot appeal to everyone, it’s just not possible. And when you stop concentrating on attracting everybody and appealing to everybody, you release the energy to speak about things that matter to you, be yourself, share your story and be vulnerable. And this way you can attract people who will care, and fall in love with your personality, with values. And they will be more than happy to work with you and vice versa.
Your authenticity will set you apart from everybody else
You probably heard that all the niches are over-saturated and that it’s very difficult to stand out or find clients. Or had thoughts like ” why to do it, it was done thousands of times before by somebody else”. Yes, maybe it was done many times before, but it wasn’t done by you, with your unique twist.
Trying to do the same things as most people are doing in your industry to achieve success is a losing strategy actually, especially when it doesn’t feel like you.
It’s your personality, your skills, and the unique experience that set you apart as an authentic personal brand. So why not share your story and your passion with the world and see what happens?
We don’t want to buy something because of the logo anymore. We want to be part of something bigger and feel that somebody cares about us as human beings. Numerous studies show that people value much more authenticity than actual content. We want to see and connect with real people behind the brand and business.
You will be more creative and enjoy the process more
When you don’t try to be somebody else or do something against your values, it feels good. When you don’t waste all your inner resources on trying to be somebody else or doing something that doesn’t feel like you, it releases so much energy and creativity for doing something that you care about.
When you do something that is aligned with your values, you as a human being enjoy the process. You can be in the moment and enjoy the work, have some fun, and create something remarkable. When we enjoy the process, when we are relaxed it makes our creative mind work so much better.
Have you ever noticed how tension and constant worries can consume all your energy and prevent you from doing creative work? That’s why it’s also important to have some quiet moments and allow yourself to have some rest and celebrate small wins. Don’t become your worst inner tyrant. Nobody wants to work with a despot!
Final thoughts
Being authentic in your business and branding is more important today than ever before. It’s something that stands you apart from others and helps you to attract your ideal clients. It will help you to fall in love with the working process, and be more creative because you will be true to yourself and create something that you care about.
Staying transparent about your struggles, and pain, telling your real story, be vulnerable will make you more human. People will be more willing to connect with you and relate. It’s like a magnet that will help you to attract more and more of the right people. Create a strategy, show up consistently throughout your content, and interact with people.
More resources on authenticity:
- “Authenticity, for me, is doing what you promise, not “being who you are”.” – Seth Godin
More of Seth Godin’s thoughts on authenticity in business
- “To be authentic is to be at peace with your imperfections. Great leaders are not the strongest, they are the ones who are honest about their weaknesses. … Great leaders don’t try to be perfect, they try to be themselves. And that’s what makes them great.” – Simon Sinek. More of Simon Sinek’s thoughts on authenticity in business and leadership