My top 3 tips to cultivate an authentic career
Authenticity is at the core of my values and if you’re reading this article it’s probably very high on your list as well. But have you ever had the impression that you can be yourself anywhere but in your career?
I clearly remember being in University and looking through job descriptions for future opportunities and often feeling inadequate for the kind of person they were looking for. It felt as if I could never be fully myself and express it in a corporate environment and that I had to necessarily put on a mask to be liked and respected and I didn’t even question it, I just knew that was the way the grown-up world worked.
The way we are prepared about going into the job market is to create a profile that is as adaptable as possible to what companies are looking for.
If you ever read a job description you wouldn’t be surprised to read that they’re looking for an enthusiastic, multi-tasking, hard-working and good looking individual, as if the only person that fits that job it’s an ideal more than a reality. It’s very rare to read “we’re looking for someone authentic and ok with being themselves”.
That’s why we work so hard to be or at least to look like that idealistic persona they want by dressing up, smiling a lot and trying to guess whatever they want us to answer.
And if you are a recovering people pleaser like me you were probably making a very good job at all these things!
Nowadays things are changing and the new generations are less and less prone to fit into a mold in order to have a certain career. We want to be proud of who we are and we want to feel authentic in all aspects of life including in our careers.
The question is, how to make that possible ?
Today I’m sharing with you 3 tips to be authentic at work :
CHECK IN REGULARLY WITH YOURSELF
An authentic career implies that you know who you are pretty well. How can you be your authentic self if you don’t know how that looks like ?
Checking in with yourself really means to take a moment to slow down and listen to your intuition.
Especially if your work is very dynamic and you’re surrounded by many people it can be easy to be transported by the general trend and loose yourself a little bit.
A quick way is to take a deep breath and drop into your body. Start feeling the base of your feet on the ground, touch your arms and reconnect with the sensations and the rhythm of your breath. How do you feel? What it’s emerging to the surface?
This is especially useful if you’re coming out of a meeting that left you confused and somewhat disconnected, maybe your boundaries have been crossed or you observed your emotions rise. What is the message coming up from that experience.
Be honest with yourself and tune into your own truth.
Embodying that feeling instead of going straight into overthinking allows you to keep out other people’s opinions and listen to your own.
Checking in regularly it’s a great way to make sure you get to know yourself and stay aligned.
COMMUNICATE WITH OTHERS FROM YOUR HEART
This tip may sound cheesy at first sight, but what I mean it’s to speak your truth as much as possible with a real desire to be honest and so authentic.
In a corporate environment decisions are often political and it can be very hard to express yourself but if you want an authentic career you need to stay in contact with your heart.
Connecting from the heart means interacting from a desire of learning from each others vs. manipulating our message to fit our needs. It’s leadership vs. survival mode.
And it surely requires a certain extend of vulnerability but it will allow you to connect so much deeper with other people.
It’s the most brave but also sustainable strategy because if we lead from manipulation we will move further and further from our truth and it will be extremely difficult to feel authentic in our role.
One of the first step coaching someone unhappy in their job is to look at what they can change in their current situation and often the first step it’s to take responsibility of our stories, let go of our rigid protection and be open to communicate our needs again. A simple discussion can lead to a greater satisfaction straight away, making a transitional situation much more manageable.
GIVE YOURSELF PERMISSION TO CHANGE AND EVOLVE
Finally being authentic means growing and evolving.
We are educated thinking that we need to find our career path and stick to it as long as possible. We are taught that consistency looks good on our CV and that change is risky.
But how can this be sustainable to our personal growth ?
Staying too long in a job that we have outgrown makes us stagnant and depressed over time because it not how things in nature work. When you look at the 4 seasons in nature, each season has a role which includes a time for blooming in spring and summer and a time for changing skin and hibernate. In today’s corporate world projects and employees are expected to be in full bloom all year long and even if it may look efficient at first it’s actually counterproductive over time.
If you want to feel authentic in your career you will inevitably outgrow some roles and maybe even outgrow a sector all together as your identity becomes more defined, and that’s a positive thing.
What you do with your precious time it’s an expression of your soul and especially if you give an important place in your life to your career, the tools to express your truth will change with you.
Finally convincing yourself to stay in a job that has lost meaning does a disservice to the people around you as well as the ones who would love to be at your price because they could express their purpose through it.
There is a beautiful quote from Jim Carrey Commencement Speech at Maharishi University that has stuck in my mind for years during my career transition and I hope it will inspire you as well :
“My father could have been a great comedian but he didn’t believe that that was possible for him, and so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant and when I was 12 he was let go from that safe job and our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father. Not the least of which was that : You can fail at what you don’t want. So you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.” Jim Carrey
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