Is Authenticity the Secret to Success?

Authenticity could be the secret to unlocking your personal potential, business focus and marketing success.

There has been a real shift from the perfect content styling of 2010- 2020. During this era we saw a lot of perfectly curated content, highly stylised imagery and the perfection felt hard to avoid.

We've seen a tremendous shift from this (thankfully) and we are in the era where the messy human has an audience! The shift to finding your authentic self (both for you personally and your business) however, can be less obvious than it sounds.

How do personalised coaching and strategy sessions help you and your business as well as improve your social media marketing?

According to one study by Berkeley University, people who live more authentically report have:

• Greater happiness

• More positive emotions

• Better relationships

• More personal growth

• Higher self-esteem

What is meant by authenticity?

By definition, authenticity comes from knowing what’s important to you and remaining true to those values in the face of external pressures and expectations. 

Think about the times you’ve set a goal that wasn’t really aligned with your values, creating a partnership that wasn’t a good match, or saying yes when you meant no. It’s possible that these were moments where you weren’t working in line with your true self and values.

January is a great time for reflection and resetting your place in the world and direction of travel. It’s easy to be influenced by what you think you should be doing based on other people’s path, success or expectations. So how do you take an audit to get to your authentic self?

A candid capture of our true authentic selves

How do I discover my authentic self?

Set aside some time for yourself and give these questions a whirl:

1. Identities:

List out all of your identities such as Lawyer, mum, wife, runner, musician, etc. Go deep, there's more than you think!

Consider the versions of you that these identities have, who experiences these versions of you, what behaviours and characteristics you express in these various identities to those audiences.

If you're considering this for your business, think about your identities to different customers, suppliers, partners, employees.

2. What's important to you? 

As an individual (and a business) what things are important to you? Is it the freedom of time (and if so, to pursue what?), financial freedom (what is the motive - to save for security, or to spend - and on what?) is it location, autonomy, or any other thing of value.

Where you spend your time and money tells you a lot about what is important to you.

3. Who is important to you and why?

Who are these people (or groups of people) to you and why are they important to you?

For your business it may be tempting to say 'customers' - break this down to the customer types that are of real value, consider one person from this group in particular to identify what it is about them that makes them valuable to you.

Analysing who is important to us and why can tell us a lot about the values we like to receive from others.

5. What are my non-negotiables?

What are the things you absolutely won't stand for, the values that oppose your natural state, the ones that repel you?

It can be useful to consider a time when you said "no" and put a boundary in place. What was it about that experience and those behaviours that made you react that way?

In our coaching sessions, we work with clients to get to the heart of who they are and what they want for themselves and their businesses. This is the step before goal setting and it provides enormous clarity.

Authenticity on Social Media

How does this help you with your social media? Well back to the authenticity theme. We’re seeing the demand for authentic human-centred content on social media. Real people who stumble over their words occasionally, who don’t create the perfect backdrop for their videos, those who speak from the heart.

AI generated content is littering our feeds, and don’t get us wrong, it can be fun. But the human element is where we’re seeing the best engagement.

So start being true to yourself and your business. Drop the perfection. Be human. Be you.

In need of a helping hand to find your true authentic self or master your authentic social media marketing? Get in touch with The Social Byrd team, we’d love to help.