Note From President Vineet Bhatnagar

In my previous article, I pondered that cultivating authenticity and letting go of what people think is critical to finding who you are and what is your original self so that you can lead a truer life.

The more we are stuck in giving attention to what people think about us the less likely we are to be our true, remarkable, authentic and original selves. And we are easily influenced by others and their views because we are all desperate to find ways to operate from a place of worthiness. We have started believing that when we say what others want to hear, when we do what others want us to do, when we think what others would like us to think, then, we are operating from a place of worthiness, greater acceptance, and social inclusivity.

What we sacrifice when we push ourselves to look worthy from someone else’s point of view is the opportunity to live a life from a place of wholeness. We reject the idea that each one of us was born as an original version of the allness. Each one of us is a unique spark of the divine. And the reason we are unable to let go of that almost compulsive feeling to please others is because our attempts to truly express ourselves have, or are likely to, come up against our culture, family norms or simply the opinions of others about ourselves.

We have all experienced the pressure to live up to other people’s expectations. Because we want to be accepted, because we are striving to be perfect.

For many of us – “PERFECTION IS THE IDEA THAT IF WE LOOK PERFECT, LIVE PERFECT AND DO IT PERFECTLY THEN WE WILL AVOID THE FEELING OF BEING JUDGED AND BEING ASSOCIATED WITH FAILURE AS THESE TAKE US TO A PLACE OF SHAME AND ISOLATION.”

The fundamental and moot point is that all of us are cognitively, emotionally, physically and perhaps even spiritually hard wired to experience love and belonging. And when we don’t, we break. When we go through our lives pleasing, performing, proving and perfecting we end up saying YES when we mean NO and at times saying NO when we
are desperate to say YES. This process is exhausting as internally we are resenting our own actions and words. It also takes us farther and farther from our true selves and simple joys of life.

Can we tell ourselves that “I am willing to choose discomfort over resentment. I am OK to live with the discomfort of not being what others want me to be because I don’t want to lead a depreciated life where I resent my own actions”? To lead a life with less resentment requires that we set boundaries that stop others from influencing our
original selves and allow us to remain authentic. It requires the courage to be imperfect, vulnerable, and set boundaries.

This requires some inner working to identify who we really are and then work upon being the best version of what we believe we truly are. This is almost a spiritual exercise and one that is very likely to take you to a place of greater joy. I had outlined in an earlier article that authenticity is cultivating the courage to be imperfect.

One of the ways to operationalise this could be to begin by making a “Want List” and a “Joy List”. COME UP WITH A LIST OF THINGS THAT YOU WANT – WHETHER TO PROVE YOURSELF PERFECT OR TO BE THE RIGHT IMAGE IN OTHER PEOPLE’S EYES. THEN MAKE A LIST OF THINGS OR EVENTS THAT GAVE YOU JOY BASED ON YOUR OWN EXPERIENCES AND EVIDENCE – ONES THAT LEFT YOU TRULY SPIRITED WITH CHILD-LIKE JOYS.

The one thing that many of us struggle with is to understand that worthiness has no prerequisites. We all need to find a way to say that “I am enough.”

— President Vineet Bhatnagar