Just Be Yourself Is Bad Advice

I was recently scrolling through my social media news feed and saw a girl's plea for help with building confidence.

As you can imagine, people reached out to help the young lass. However it was peppered with peoples opinions, stated as facts; all of which I am sure were meant with good intention.

A few of the comments said things like ‘Babe, just be yourself’ and ‘ahhhh hun if you just be you, you’ll be fine’.

I really feel for people in these situations because often the help people are giving can be more damaging than good.

I’ll very quickly explain, I’m a mindset strategist and work with people from the likes of celebrities and professional athletes through to those that are about to commit suicide. I’ve worked with most things along the spectrum of emotion multiple times and I’m obsessed with empowering people to unlock their full potential and make it happen and as a result I’ve learned to notice a lot of behaviours patterns in humans of all shapes and sizes, from all walks of life which is why I feel my opinion on this is valid.

What I will say is I am certainly not against people trying to help, very much the opposite but what they were saying is bad advice.

So why is it bad advice?

For a start, using the word ‘just’ is a discounting word.

In the context, it was used in reply to her plea for help it can be interpreted as making her self be less than what she is.

There is no need for the word just at all.

You will often see the ‘just’ word being used when people are trying to be offensive ‘You’re just an employee, do your job etc’ and unconsciously it can have this same impact when used in the way these people were offering their help.

An emotion is a signal, a symptom. And a symptom is a result of a cause.

If you feel happy and positive, it’s because of a cause and if you feel negative emotions like stress, frustration or have low self-esteem etc it is also as a result of a cause.

In this girls instance, she had a lack of confidence which left her with feelings of anxiety, low self-esteem etc.

The reason – She is being incongruent. 

My basic explanation of being incongruent means when your actions don’t align with your intentions.

This is where the ‘just be yourself’ advice is wrong.

Whatever she was doing at this stage she was still being herself but not the BEST version of herself.

If you are being the best version of yourself your actions and intentions are aligned.

If you are aligned it doesn’t mean that you won’t go through challenging times, you will but it will mean that you are on track to be where or who you ultimately want to be. Short-term pain, long-term gain.

So to summarise.

Don’t just be yourself, Be the best version of yourself. Identify what you really want and take action towards that, don’t settle for average – want help with that? check out Unlock Your Potential.

This way you will be the best version of yourself and reap the huge rewards that come with being that.

Until next time… make it happen.

Will

PS. If you are interested in working on developing yourself and becoming more congruent, you may book a Clarity, Action, and Accountability session with me by clicking here.