Personality Is Your True and “Authentic” Self

The final myth is that your personality is your “authentic” self, which you should be “true” to. This myth leads people to being incredibly inflexible and narrow about how they view themselves. Take, for example, the fact that many American teenagers are becoming increasingly inflexible. Many students across the country are demanding that they no longer be required to give in-class oral presentations, claiming their issues with anxiety make them “uncomfortable” with presenting in front of an audience. They believe they shouldn’t be required to do something that feels so unnatural. In an article published in the Atlantic entitled “Teens Are Protesting In-Class Presentations,” one fifteen-year-old tweeted the following statement, which garnered more than 130,000 retweets and nearly half a million likes: “Stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not to.” Another teen tweeted, “Teachers, please stop forcing students to present in front of the class & raise their hand in exchange for a good grade. Anxiety is real.” Ula, a fourteen-year-old in eighth grade, reported, “Nobody should be forced to do something that makes them uncomfortable. Even though speaking in front of class is supposed to build your confidence and it’s part of your schoolwork, I think if a student is really unsettled and anxious because of it you should probably make it something less stressful. School isn’t something a student should fear.” Interestingly, many teachers agree with these students and are looking to provide alternative learning experiences that are less emotionally and socially risky, and instead more comfortable. Rather than helping the students become mature and confident, such teachers are catering to their demands, essentially validating a teenager’s fixed mindset and lack of psychological flexibility. A fundamental problem with traditional views of a fixed and innate personality is that people feel entitled to do only the things that feel natural or easy to them. If something is hard, difficult, or awkward, then people say, “I shouldn’t have to do this.” It’s instructive that “authenticity” is a highly prized value in modern society. People believe they have an “authentic” self — their “truth” — which is who they should be true to. This self is seen as innate, the “real” them. This line of thinking leads people to say things like, “I need to be true to myself. I shouldn’t have to deny myself of how I’m feeling. I shouldn’t have to lie to myself. I should be able to do what feels right to me.” Although well-meaning, this thinking reflects a fixed mindset, and often a reaction to trauma or a lack of healthy connection to parents. Often, kids from really extreme family situations — whether exceptionally strict or with practically zero guidelines — develop this desire for emotional-based self-direction. I know many people who now, as maturing adults, are choosing limiting lives in the name of “authenticity” and being “real” with themselves. Pop culture has led people, like the eighth-grader mentioned above, to define “authenticity” as “however I feel right now.” In digging deeper and asking questions, I often find that these people have feelings of inadequacy and fear falling short of the demands of their parents. The desire to be “authentic” keeps people stuck in unhealthy patterns, trapped in their insecurities. Compare the complaining high school students to Wharton business professor and New York Times bestselling author Adam Grant, who explained how he got over his anxiety of public speaking. In order to become who he wanted to be, he had to give up his notions of his “authentic” self. At a commencement speech delivered at Utah State University, Grant said: If authenticity is the value you prize most in life, there’s a danger that you’ll stunt your own development. When I was in grad school, a friend asked me to give a guest lecture for her class. I was terrified of public speaking, but I wanted to be helpful, so I agreed. I figured it would be a good learning opportunity, so after the class I handed out feedback forms asking how I could improve. It was brutal. One student wrote that I was so nervous I was causing the whole class to physically shake in their seats. My authentic self was not a fan of public speaking. But I started volunteering to give more guest lectures, knowing it was the only way to get better. I wasn’t being true to myself, I was being true to the self I wanted to become. “Authenticity” these days is usually another way of saying, “I have a fixed mindset. I am a certain way and shouldn’t be expected to do anything but what comes immediately naturally and easy for me. I shouldn’t have to do anything but what feels good, right now.” Your authentic self is not who you currently are, and it is definitely not who you used to be. Your authentic self is what you most believe in and who you aspire to be. Moreover, your authentic self is going to change. Being authentic is about being honest, and being honest is about facing the truth, not justifying your limitations because you don’t want to be uncomfortable have hard conversations