I’m excited to bring you Part 2 of a 3-part series on building connections by being authentic.
If you haven’t read it yet, Part 1 covers gesturing, and how you can use your arms and expressions to make your words more believable and build more trust with people.
In this post (Part 2) I go into your lifestyle. If you want people see you for who you are, and be drawn to you for that reason, continue reading below. I show you how to make it happen.
Part 3 dives into the deep, murky waters of vulnerability. It can be scary giving away your deepest, darkest secrets. But opening up to people is crucial to gaining their trust. Done properly, people will start to open up to you in ways you’ve never imagined. And I’ll show you how to do it right.
Alright, let’s get started with it.
Are You Living The Life You Were Meant To Live?
Now that it’s Saturday, Sarah and Wendy are excited for their weekend. They both want to spend the weekend doing activities they enjoy and things that will improve their lives.
Sarah plans on getting up at 7:30 to exercise, but hits the snooze button on her alarm a few times before shutting it off completely. She tells herself she doesn’t need to wake up early to workout.
Finally, she gets up and goes downstairs to watch a little TV before going on a run. But 30 minutes into it, she decides she’s hungry and wants to eat first. She makes breakfast and watches some more TV.
Now it’s getting close to noon, and Sarah decides she will clean the kitchen counters, then go workout. But she realizes she’s out of Clorox Wipes and decides to go to Target to replenish her stock.
By the end of the day, Sarah ate, watched TV and went to Target.
Let’s compare this to Wendy.
Wendy gets up at 7:30 right when her alarm goes off. She makes a pot of coffee, jumps in the shower to wake up, and is at her computer with hot cup of joe by 8:15.
She watches 30 minutes of graphic design lessons, then practices those techniques while doing design work for a client.
At 10:30 Wendy goes downstairs, makes breakfast and reads until she leaves to play tennis with her friends at noon.
After tennis and a shower, she does some design work for her own catalogue, goes to the park with her family, then heads back home to eat dinner and relax with those same loved ones.
Taking Control Of Your Life And Living It To The Fullest
As much as Sarah likes to watch TV, like many of us do, it’s not something she loves to do. There are a few shows she loves watching, but those are not the ones she was watching on Saturday.
Essentially, Sarah didn’t do one thing on Saturday that she would have loved to do.
Compare that to Wendy whose day was filled with things she loves. Graphic design, learning, reading, playing tennis, being with friends, and spending time with family. You’ll also notice that pretty much all of those activities are productive to her life in one way or another:
- Doing client work = making money & honing design skills
- Working on her catalogue = potential future money & honing design skills
- Tennis = exercise and nourishing relationships with friends
- Park = outdoor activity and nourishing family relationships
- Dinner and relaxing with family = relaxation and nourishing family relationships
I would consider Wendy’s day a great example of living an authentic lifestyle.
What Does It Mean To Live An Authentic Lifestyle?
Living an authentic lifestyle means you are doing things that truly make you happy and fulfilled to your core. Not only for the short-term, but for the long-term too.
It’s a combination of enjoying every day of your life, while pursuing and moving towards your long-term goals.
How Will This Improve My Social Life And My Ability To Connect With Others?
First, you need to understand how it will improve your personal life.
By doing more of the things you love, more of the things that interest you, and pursuing your long-term goals more actively, you will be happier and you will enjoy your life more. This energy will spill over into many other areas of your life, which will benefit greatly from the improvements.
Also, by trying and doing new things, you increase the chances that you will find activities that deeply fulfill you. You also gain a better understanding of the world and other people’s lives by trying new things.
But living an authentic lifestyle does more than just that. Your social life will improve drastically. Here a just some of the reasons why:
- You’ll be happier, and that positive energy will show in your social interactions.
- You’ll have more to talk about because you’ll be doing more things that you are passionate about.
- If you choose social activities that involve people you don’t know, you’ll be meeting more people.
- You’ll be meeting people that share your passions, which is the best route for making great friends.
- You’ll be living a more productive, successful and exciting lifestyle, which will make you more attractive and interesting to other people.
On top of all that, the reason you will be able to make stronger connections with people, and why I personally believe it is so important to live an authentic lifestyle, is because you will start being THE REAL YOU. You will start being the person you are meant to be.
Rather than reacting to world around you, you will be doing the things that are most important to you. It will allow you to open up and be your truest self.
As you continue focusing on what’s important to you, you will notice that this authenticity in your lifestyle will start to make you more authentic in other areas of your life.
By doing what you want to do, you will start saying what you want to say, and you will start sticking to your morals.
It will give you more confidence in your life, and people are very drawn to this. You will start connecting much better with those around you.
To take advantage of these benefits, you need to start applying this to your own life.
How To Create Your Own Authentic Lifestyle
Living an authentic life is a simple two-step process.
Step one – Do these five activities as often as possible:
- Do the things you love
- Do new things
- Learn more about things that interest you
- Learn more about new things
- Work towards the number one thing you want to accomplish
Step two – Choose productive activities that involve:
- Socializing
- Exercising
- Challenging yourself mentally
- Challenging yourself creatively
Not everything you do has to be productive. I love Game of Thrones and watching it isn’t productive to my life, but I thoroughly enjoy it and it’s totally worth it. As long as you love something, you can try to fit it into your life.
But your mind, body and spirit all work together symbiotically. The more you take care of one, the better the others will work. By taking care of all three, you will help become your best self.
Turning Your Busy, Reactive Life Into A Fulfilling, Authentic One
You likely don’t have the time to do whatever you want all day everyday. Most people don’t.
You might have a job that you aren’t passionate about. You might have a family to take care of, or a sick loved one you watch over. Maybe you’ve even started a big do-it-yourself remodeling project in your house that eats up a lot of your free time.
It doesn’t mean you can’t start improving your life and slowly building your way to your true authentic lifestyle.
In fact, that’s exactly what you should be doing – making small, lasting tweaks to your life. As time goes on you’ll look back almost baffled, wondering how you lived so much differently.
Here are some of the best ways to start creating your authentic lifestyle:
Determine your top choices for Step One above. Figure out what you want to do when you have free time in the future. Do you want to surf? Take a yoga class? Paint? Write the first chapter of your book? Spend quality time with your family. Try mountain biking for the first time? Whatever your Step One activities might be, determine them ahead of time.
Schedule. Now that you know some of the things you want to do, schedule them into your life. Keep an active calendar of all the times when you are busy so you can easily see when you are free and where you will be. Start scheduling your Step One activities during your free time.
Be aware. If you notice that you aren’t doing one of the Step One activities you planned (during its scheduled time), take notice. Can you snap back into action and start doing the activity? Or are you too tired to be productive? Maybe adding this activity at this time doesn’t work because you just don’t have the energy. You want to notice what is working and what isn’t and figure out how to do more of what is.
Combine activities. If you can combine two or more Step One activities without diminishing their quality, do it! I wouldn’t recommend writing computer code and trying to learn guitar at the same time, but you might be able to combine exercise, fun and socializing into one activity by playing basketball with your friends. Many people struggle to do the things they love while also tending to their loved ones. If you can find an activity you can do with family (that each person truly enjoys), then that’s a win-win.
Replace. Wherever possible, try replacing things that are less important to you with things that are more important. Maybe you replace watching TV for an hour after work with a run, a yoga class, or making music. If you take your daughter to and from soccer practice twice a week, maybe it makes more sense to bring a book or your laptop and go to the coffee shop across the street for an hour and twenty minutes rather than driving 20 minutes to get home, having 40 minutes of free time, then driving 20 minutes to get back.
Permanent Changes. Lastly, you may want to consider making a big change to your life. This could be changing your job, the people you spend time with, or the major you are studying. Of course, this is a much bigger decision and you shouldn’t take it lightly. But if you can change your job from doing something that you care little about to doing something that is passionate to you or something that is teaching you skills that you truly want to learn, it’s absolutely worth considering.
How To Take Action Now
Here’s how you can quickly implement this system:
- Figure out your top three activities for each of the five Step One activities. (These can change as your preferences change.) It can be simple, just like this spreadsheet:
- Prioritize your activities. Determine which ones are most important to you. For each item of the five categories, rank your activities 1 – 3.
- If you don’t already have a calendar that shows when you are busy, create one. With Google and Apple calendars, this is very easy these days.
- Add at least one of your Rank 1 activities to your schedule. You can add more if you think you can make it work, but starting small is fine. Once you can make one activity an ongoing habit, you can add another.
- Take notice of what’s working. If something isn’t working, figure out why and try to see what would make it work. Keep looking for ways to do more of what you want.
That’s it! If you put the effort into making this happen, you will be well on your way to living an authentic lifestyle. A life that is exactly the one you should live.
Now it’s time get out there and do the things you were meant to do.