Changeology Clinic: Be Real or Be Exhausted--The Truth About Authenticity and "Being Yourself"

In this Changeology Clinic episode, I dive into the raw truth about authenticity—why it’s so damn hard, why faking it is draining the life out of you, and how to finally step up and own your truth. No fluff, no sugarcoating—just real talk about what’s keeping you stuck and how to break free.

We get into the sneaky ways we betray ourselves daily, the cost of playing small, and why authenticity isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a necessity if you want a life that actually feels good. If you’ve ever felt exhausted from pretending, overwhelmed by expectations, or just unsure of how to step into who you really are, you simply must listen to this episode.

Because here’s the deal—being authentic isn’t easy, but neither is living a life that drains the hell out of you. Pick your hard.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

🌟 The hidden energy drain of being inauthentic (and how to stop it)
 🌟 Why people-pleasing is your biggest roadblock to real change
 🌟 The mindset shift that makes authenticity non-negotiable
 🌟 How to start showing up as YOU—unapologetically

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Transcript

Changeology Clinic: Be Real or Be Exhausted: The Truth About Authenticity and “Being Yourself”

In today’s Changeology Clinic, I’m going to talk about the importance–and difficulty–of being authentic.

It’s become really common to see the advice, “be authentically you” bandied about in popular culture and self-development circles these days. But what does that actually MEAN?

And on the other hand, what does it mean to be INauthentic–and what are the consequences of being inauthentic?

How do I lean into being more authentic?

What does any of this have to do with change?

Regardless of your spiritual/religious/OR NOT inclinations, what I’ll share with you in this episode will be helpful for you. 

But I do want to ground this conversation in a core belief of mine to give us a common language to use during the discussion.

I believe that when we’re born, we are born with a purpose. Some would say our souls have some reason to incarnate right now. I believe we are born with a set of interests and gifts that complement our purpose. 

Using our gifts, and engaging with our interests, will help us in finding our purpose and in living it out. 

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass tells the really beautiful part of several indigenous American cultures that believe it’s the individual’s responsibility in this lifetime to find and use their unique gifts to benefit others. It is the responsibility of that individual’s community to support them in and help them in finding their gifts. Reciprocity between giving of yourself and your gifts and your community both supporting you in that and also potentially benefiting from that. The GREATEST GOOD comes from you using your gifts. 

So to summarize, I believe that we are born with a purpose, unique gifts, and interests. 

• Our interests help us identify our purpose, and
• Our gifts help us live out our purpose.

Again, everything that I am sharing today will work regardless of your spiritual/religious/or not inclinations.

What is authenticity? What does it MEAN?

To be AUTHENTIC is to understand and act in alignment with those interests, gifts, and ultimately, purpose.

When you’re engaging with your authentic-NESS, the core of who you are, and what you’re here to do (however you conceptualize that), you find FLOW.

You find energy, excitement, meaning, fulfillment, and connection.

And when you tap into that energy, you have access to MORE ABUNDANCE in your life. 

• MORE energy. When you are authentic, energy is GENERATED.
• MORE connection with others. When you are plugged in to your authenticity, It is EASY to engage with people who are interested in the same things or connect with others about what fascinates you
• MORE inspiration. This is one of my favorites because I LOVE feeling inspired. I seek it. It feeds me.
• MORE monetary success, if you want that, because engaging in your interests and applying your gifts becomes effortless–and therefore it’s easier to generate high quality work
• MORE ability to enjoy your success.

Many of the women that I work with attain what I like to refer to as the “Traditional Model of Success” (TMS)--money, status, doing what is expected of you–but they cannot access feeling good about this success or enjoying it because they didn’t align with their authentic desires to get there. They compromised their authenticity so that’s why they can’t enjoy it–it’s a disconnect.

Aligning with your authenticity means to understand your true interests, gifts, and purpose and to respect them. And heed them. 

When you are in this state of authentic alignment, you are more magnetic, and you have access to more of the goodies that you want to enjoy. Time, energy, motivation, and even monetary success. It just FLOWS.

So that’s what it means to be authentic. It’s a simple concept, but it is NOT easy.

Let’s talk about the ways in which we’re often inauthentic…even when we don’t realize it.

Here are some examples.

• Someone asks you to do something you don’t want to do. But you feel like you should do it. So you do. I love the example of being on the PTA (parent organization at your child’s school). You were invited to participate because others recognize your leadership skills, which are needed. However, your schedule is already busy with things you value and are prioritizing right now, and being on the pTA was not on that list. But, they asked, and you know that the PTA will benefit from your leadership–and potentially, so will your child, by extension–so you begrudgingly say yes.
• The REASON this is inauthentic is because it goes against what YOU, deep down, truly desire to do–which is not be on the PTA. Or to do something you value/prioritize MORE with your time.
• Important distinction: It’s not about the PTA. It’s not about the action. It’s about the energy and intention behind it. 
• It’s about ignoring or overriding your own inner authority and desires because you deem them to be less important or less worthy than something else.
• Here, your desire to do other things with your time that you value more and are aligned with your current priorities is LESS VALUABLE than the PTA having access to your leadership skills.

• Another example. Your colleague invites you to join her birthday drinks gathering after work one night, and… you just don’t wanna. You’re tired, and if you’re being honest, you were really looking forward to your jammies, your cat, and your book. But you think back to how this colleague came to YOUR birthday drinks, you feel guilty, and so you begrudgingly go.
• You might be saying, well, Meg, how is that a problem? Just being nice and reciprocating
• So yes you’re going, but there will be a guilty or even potentially resentful energy about your attendance. You fundamentally don’t want to be there. 
• In this situation, you have ignored your authentic desires because you feel obligated to engage in a transactional social situation. You have told yourself: Nah, I’m less important than what other people think of my actions. My rest and enjoyment of my evening is not as important as doing what I think someone else wants me to do.
• But really, when we peel back those layers, would YOU want someone at your party that mostly doesn’t want to be there? Prob not.

But This kind of abandonment of our own needs and desires is something that we engage in all the time.. Frankly, this happens more often to women because we are conditioned to be “nice” or “helpful”. THIS is being inauthentic.

There are very real consequences to behaving MOSTLY inauthentically.

• #1: It drains your energy faster than ANYTHING else, because you’re pretending.
• #2: You demonstrate to yourself that you don’t respect your own inner authority. Over time, this makes it super hard to even HEAR the voice of your inner authentic self.
• #3: It feels shitty to really want to do one thing and do something else because you feel like you do not have a choice, or because you don’t want to deal with the consequences of doing what you want.

Again, being authentic is simple, but it is fucking HARD. It’s especially hard when you’re on the precipice of making a big change. If you’re wanting to make a big change, odds are good that you’re perceiving in your body or your emotions that being inauthentic has resulted in a status quo that YOU DO NOT LIKE. It feels shitty.

The CHANGE you’re flirting with is asking you to step into a more AUTHENTIC version of yourself, and that can be really fucking scary. 

One of the biggest Mistakes I see in people is that they have all the energy of making a big change, and then they take a half-measure toward embracing authenticity, but they don’t take it all the way. Eventually, that same feeling of something being off or not quite right will return.

For example, the person that has always wanted to be a writer of fiction, and she quits one corporate job for another where there are more writing responsibilities and a similar salary—but it’s technical business writing. What she REALLY WANTS is to write fiction. Now she can write fiction in her off-time, sure, while making money at the corporate technical writing job, but if she’s not getting sufficient time to do that thing she loves (fiction writing), she will not have energy to sustain it. Eventually she’ll come back to the precipice of change.

Sometimes, taking half steps is how change works. THAT IS OKAY. You are not always ABLE to financially go for it and might need to build up on it. 

But it is the longer path toward true authenticity.

So let’s now talk about some ways that you can lean into being a little more authentic. When you do these things, the voice of your authentic self will become much, much clearer. You can cut through the bullshit and noise much more easily.

Get to know your interests and gifts, 

• Most people do not have a good understanding of what they are gifted at AND ALSO INTERESTED IN. A LOT of this gets shaped by context, and social conditioning.
• They know very well what is in their zone of excellence–a term coined by Gay Hendricks–and they think that’s good enough. Zone of Excellence is what you’re really good at and kinda like, but don’t love. Gay Hendricks likes to point out that this is a dangerous place to be, because you can spend a lot of time in the zone of excellence and become “comfortably numb.”
• But where the magic happens is occupying and spending most of your time in the zone of genius. If you're unfamiliar, the zone of genius is what you are singularly gifted at doing, that you could do with virtually NO effort, and seems like not a big deal to you. Most people do not either KNOW what their zone of genius is–or are afraid to own it fully, because it might be something different than what they’re doing all the time (zone of excellence).

The second thing you can to do embrace being more authentic is to identify your values and what your priorities are for right now.

• You simply must know what your values are. You can use those to guide you in making decisions moving forward, but they’re also really key in better tuning in to your authenticity. 
• One of my clients identified “flexibility” and “justice” as a few of her core values. When she made the decision to pivot in her career, she explored potential opportunities against those values. If a job post says that the gig needs her to wear a suit and go in to the office daily? Nope. Not a fit. A job advertises that it has a flexible workplace environment, but it’s at a soulless, mega corporation? Nope. Pass.
• What are you prioritizing right now? Maybe it’s time at home with your  young family. Maybe it’s starting a new business. Maybe it’s a time to rest and recharge.
• As you consider your priorities, A Reminder: You may not be in a phase of life where you can quit your corporate job to be a fiction writer, and that’s okay. But YOU KNOW THAT’S YOUR DIRECTION, and you’re working toward it, and that makes all the energetic difference. It’s a matter of timing, not inauthenticity. You’re not pretending.

The third way to embrace authenticity is (perhaps the hardest in this list), but it is: Begin ruthlessly saying NO to the things that don’t align with your authentic desires, your values, or your current priorities. This will give you the time, energy, and space to engage more with your authentic desires.

• I find that it’s easier to work on saying no to misaligned opportunities than to start saying yes immediately, because you need to create space for those YESes. 
• Much of what you can say no to are the things that take your energy without your permission. 
• Say no to meetings that aren’t critical for you to attend.
• Say no to social engagements that you’re meh about. 
• Say no to things that “should’ be a good use of your time but you get grouchy thinking about doing them.
• Magic phrase: “Not at this time” “Not this time”
• Helpful Hint: If you know your Human Design and how you respond–I’m a sacral authority, so my gut is always right for me
• Once you start saying no, pockets of time and energy will begin to appear. 
• Another interesting side-effect of saying no to misaligned opportunities is that you will start respecting yourself more. You’ll listen to her like she’s a real fucking human who deserves your regard. Then people will start to notice that and THEY will respect you more. Because you are always teaching people how to treat you.

It might even give others permission to say no to sh*t they don’t want to do. It’s hard at first, but so worth it.When you start to easily know which opportunities to say no to, THAT is when you can start saying yes to what you authentically want. That’s when the real change will happen.

I hope this episode empowers you to start saying no to shit that takes your energy without your permission so that you can LEAN IN to your authentic self. Because that’s what the world needs.