On the heels of my post about sincerity… I think it is necessary to follow up with a post about authenticity. I feel like authenticity is an extremely underrated quality. What is authenticity to me? It’s about being true to yourself, it’s about having your online persona match up with your offline persona, it’s about being consistent around your friends and about being honest with who you are.

I feel I’ve done a pretty good job in my adult years of staying true to myself. But what I’m realizing I’m not doing a very good job of is being consistent around my friends. Over the past few months I’ve had a few heart-to-heart talks with some of my very close friends about my desire to be more authentic. They’ve all commented on how I seem so “put together” on my blog, but when we talk in person I’m much more open about my feelings, my concerns, and my weaknesses. They’ve also noted about how I act very different one-on-one than I do in large groups.

Let’s tackle the first problem about the online persona. A personal blog is inherently narcissistic. It’s not possible to have a personal blog without it being about you to some degree. I feel like with anyone’s online persona… it is inherently difficult to completely show all sides of you online. To some degree, it’s to protect yourself. The online space is very vulnerable and you never know who could be looking at your website or blog – your coworkers, your future boss, your parents, your relatives… so already it’s not in your best interest to share every part of who you are. I feel like I’ve done a so-so job with this. I’ve posted about my struggles with eczema, weight, money, relationships, and more. But it’s true – my blog is more about my adventures on the west coast and the fun things I am doing.

So how do you reconcile this? Is it even possible?

I can say this honestly though – everything I’ve said on my blog about myself or my life is completely true. At least I can take some pride in that.

The second problem is consistency with my friends. I want to be authentic with them regardless of whether I’m in a group setting or just hanging out with them one-on-one. I think the base-level problem here is that I care a lot about what people think of me. The past few years it’s something I’ve been very aware of, and something that I’ve been struggling not to worry about. When you care about what other people think of you, it causes you to value things that probably shouldn’t be a priority in life. For example, let’s face it, would you buy designer items like bags or shoes if you didn’t care about what people thought of you? In some cases yes, high quality items are a good thing… but you can usually buy high quality items without them coming from a large French or Italian fashion house at 500% markup. It’s a constant struggle I’ve been trying to fight, but I’ve often lost. And the truth is, I’m not quite sure how to fight it.

I know what is most important in my life: Allan, my family, my friends, my career, and my activities. In that order. Everything else should fall underneath that. It’s important that I do things because I want to, not because I want to impress others. Will I still buy designer items, cook fancy meals, go on adventures, do activities and throw parties? Yes. But I need to make sure I am doing those things because I want to, not because of what others will think of me. It’s a very fine line, but I need to try. And I hope in doing so, I can be more authentic to my friends and my readers. I’ve already taken some extreme steps in my life in the past few years to be more authentic, but I need to be better.

I know that I’ve been sincere: doing things when I say I’m going to, really meaning something when I say it, inviting people out to do things only when I really want to do those things with them, and being friends with people that I really care about and want to be friends with. I’m also weeding people out of my life that are bad friends or have bad influences on my life. Being surrounded by good people who encourage you, have positive influences on your life and help take the stress out of your life is important. But being more authentic is the next step for me personally.

So here we go! In my first big steps towards being authentic, I’m going to lay out my strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has a good and a bad side, and no one is perfect! I think it’s crazy when people message me and tell me they think I lead the “perfect life”… let me tell you, no one has a perfect life!

My strengths: Loving in my relationship, loyal to my close friends, self-aware, creativity, ambitious with my career, good at organizing things, getting things done, haggling, perseverance, multitasking, social, somewhat athletic/sporty, generous, willing to take a chance, trustworthy, faithful, honest, and fun.

My weaknesses: Absolutely terrible with my money, extremely impatient, lazy at home (like to watch TV when I’m home), worry too much about what others think of me, no self-control with food, thinking too much inside my head, getting stressed out, buying things I can’t afford, speaking my mind before thinking, messy, short with my temper around strangers, shy around strangers, picky about many things, and different around groups than individuals.

I’m going to continue to work on my weaknesses, and especially work on being even more authentic in my life.

So there you go!

And here are my questions to you…

Is it even possible to reconcile an online persona with an offline persona?

Do you feel like authenticity is important? If so, how have you incorporated it into your life?