We often hear people say: Be yourself, or be true to yourself or just be who you are. It sounds like an excellent piece of advice, however if you give it a second thought, you would find it’s not as easy as it seems to be. Do we just say or do whatever we want to? Do we just rely on our first impression or impulse? It’s really easy said than done. If you understand it literally like that, it would be hard for you to avoid running into a stone wall or even failure.

Then how should we understand this well-known suggestion? Personally I suppose we’ll first have to examine ourselves inwardly to find out what kind of person we are. You need to be honest and open to make an objective evaluation of yourself. What are your strengths and what are your weaknesses? What are your real interests? If you are not as smart as some others, you have to admit that fact. However, it doesn’t mean you are less smart in all other fields. Everyone has his own merits and demerits. The key is that we should never magnify our bad qualities or good ones.

Secondly we human beings are social animals. In other words, we have to learn to get along with other people, whether they are your loved ones or your superiors like employers or your subordinates or just complete strangers. So we’ll have to develop a set of values on how to deal with other people, such as honesty integrity and respecting others’ rights and opinions. Everybody has his own set of values, believe it or not. If you want to be true to yourself, you’ll have to stick to it once it is established.

Here are some ideas that may help you in this regard:

1.      Accept yourself, respect yourself, believe in yourself and love yourself. If you yourself don’t believe in yourself, others can feel it. How can they possibly believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself? Similarly, when you respect yourself, others will respect you. On the other hand, being true to yourself doesn’t mean that you should accept all of your flaws and not make positive changes in your life. You should be aware of both your limitations and areas where you can improve.

2.      Don’t be afraid of saying no to yourself as well as others. If you can’t answer a certain question, let them know calmly and frankly that you don’t know. Living in this world, we’re constantly asked to do this or that. For various reasons, we feel very hard to refuse. In this situation, be true to yourself: Are you capable of doing this? Is it a good thing to do it? Maybe it is of vital concern and worthy of somebody else’s passion, but it’s not yours. To be a scientist is of course a high aim, yet do you have the talent it requires? Can you really put your heart into it? Ask yourself honestly! If the answer is negative, then take yourself out of it! We only need to find those few things that are particularly our own and then embrace them with all our heart. If you try to solve all the world’s problems in one minute, you’re likely to quit before you finish rolling up your sleeves.

3.      Always give others credit or praise that is rightfully theirs. However, you can not back down when you know you are right. Don’t be afraid of those who might have a better idea or who might even be smarter than you are. Something that is wrong will never become correct just because it is said or done by a VIP. Stand firmly for your convictions in the face of personal pressure.

4.      Set reasonable life goals. We all want to succeed. We do the things we do because we believe they will make us happy. Problems arise when we don’t live authentic lives. We desire to have a perfect job, perfect inter-personal relationships, and a higher position so much that we often find ourselves completely lost. We are paying too much attention to the external factors. Inevitably we will do everything to preserve this façade, but do very little to develop our inner values and personal growth. When you do things that are not genuine or a reflection of the real you, you’ll eventually not be happy with yourself and will end up confused. Because when you please somebody for a certain purpose, it is against your own will. So just try to obtain what is rightfully yours.

5.      Stick to your values, especially integrity. Integrity is an inner standard for judging your behavior. Unfortunately, integrity is in short supply today and is getting scarcer. But it is the real bottom line in every area of society. And it is something that we must demand of ourselves. To be true to yourself means to act in accordance with who you really are and what you believe.