If I could teach my kids one thing – this would be it.

I was recently involved in delivering a podcast series and the conversation quickly turned to what lesson I would most like to leave with my children.

By way of background, I have 4 children that I have shared responsibility for – ages 18, 15, 7, and 4. Obviously, I’m going to get a lot of practice primarily involving a lot of trial and error!

So, what’s the one lesson I’d like to leave them with? For me, this has to be the importance of being authentic.

Authenticity is commonly defined as being true to oneself, genuine, and not pretending to be someone else.

In today’s busy environment, we can easily lose sight of what’s important to us based upon our own unique life experiences. Without this clarity, it can easily lead to us operating within an environment that doesn’t celebrate and promote what makes us unique.

What do I mean by ‘environment’ in this context? For the purpose of this discussion, I'm talking about the world we create around us - at work, at home, at leisure - the people we surround ourselves with, and the things we do with our time.

So, how do we become more authentic?

I believe that living authentically means aligning our actions with our personal values.

Our personal values come from our life experiences. We’ve all had different life experiences, so it makes sense that we all have developed different personal values.

By having clarity of what our personal values are, we are more likely to create an environment that helps us promote these values and, therefore, lead a more authentic life.

What happens if we don’t have this clarity? Well, it can become more of a game of chance whether our environment promotes or conflicts with our values. Without this clarity, we are more likely to compare ourselves to others and feel more disillusioned with our environment e.g. creating the ‘culture of comparison’. We are also more likely to blame external factors for any unhappiness and disengagement.

Given our values can change over time, we may also find ourselves misaligned with those ‘closest’ to us. Throughout our lives we can find ourselves surrounded by people that misalign with our values, even if in years gone by our values seemed to be complementary.  You see, values can change too, when we have new experiences. All of this then can result in precious time and energy being invested in managing the misalignment of a relationship - all at the expense of our own wellbeing. Being authentic allows us to accept more easily when relationships are no longer complementary to our values.

When we embrace our authenticity, we attract and surround ourselves with like-minded individuals. Being authentic promotes wellbeing, mental health and overall quality of life. It brings ease into our life.

When was the last time you evaluated what your personal values were? At Synergy Health, we assist organisations in helping their employees identify their personal values so that they can proactively cultivate an environment that supports and nurtures what is uniquely important to each individual. This directly promotes wellbeing, engagement and overall happiness.

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