3 Inspirational Quotes That Encourage You To Be Yourself

“Just be yourself!”

These were the rather stern words of this intimidatingly beautiful woman that he was dating several years ago. And her anger was very directly directed at me!

Oh!

So, in this article on being yourself, I’m going to explore what it really means to be yourself and why someone would spend time NOT being themselves.

And to help me, I have listed the services of 3 inspirational quotes.

So anyway, back to the date that wasn’t going well…

The words of this woman puzzled me. I could tell she was irritated that she wasn’t me, call it male intuition or the fact that she growled as she talked, but I also knew that she had spent my entire life doing just that: BEING MYSELF.

So I was puzzled, and even a little frustrated. Because I knew that I specialized in being myself. For example:

* I wore the clothes I wanted to wear

* I had my own thoughts, and not someone else’s

* I did not conform, I did not surrender to the ‘rules’ of life, often sad.

And I was more or less happy doing it, surrounded by friends happy with me, being me.

“The challenge is to be yourself in a world that is trying to make you like everyone else”

Anonymous said that. And I said “Tick” – challenge well accepted.

So how was I not being myself?

Well, this is the part of being myself that I understood the least at the time. But that’s EXACTLY what my beautiful roommate was referring to when she complained, “Just be yourself!”

Simply put, what I was noticing was saying one thing and FEELing another.

So I might have felt angry at the time, but I pretended to be calm. I might have felt sad, but I would put on my ‘happy’ face. I might even have been intimidated in the company of this woman, but I was too scared to show it (even to myself).

Yes, very often this state of ‘not being yourself’ is one that you don’t even realize you are in; These out-of-sync feelings may be so normal to you that you just don’t notice them.

And for those times when you DO realize you’re faking your feelings, well, you usually do it because…because of what the other person might think.

Oh yeah, we’re in familiar self-help territory now. Now we are seeing what prevents us from being ourselves, either on the surface, with the fashion that we follow, or deep down: we are afraid of not being accepted by others.

And I’m sure I’m not the only one suffering from this. Chances are, you too can commit to being yourself, because of what others may think; because others might ridicule your efforts at ‘individuality’.

Well fear not, because you and I have our own inspirational quote that might help us here:

“Use the talents you possess: the forest would be very quiet if there were no birds singing there, except for the ones that sing best.”

–Henry Van Dyke

The harsh truth is that ALL we can do is BE OURSELVES to the best of our ability. Whether we choose to sing, dance or speak in public, however we choose to express who we are, it has to be the best it can be.

All we can do is EXPRESS OURSELVES with the greatest truthfulness and self-knowledge that we can.

THEN…then we’ll be being ourselves, whatever the consequences, we’ll be being ourselves

But make no mistake, this journey of being yourself is not trivial. There will be difficulties along the way; there will be distractions. And we may well take one step forward and two steps back. However, it is VITAL to be yourself, vital.

So I’d like to end this article with these words from author ee cummins, which pretty much sums up what I’ve been trying to say here:

“It takes courage to grow and become who you really are.”

Thank you, and I wish you the best on your journey of ‘being yourself’. And if you ever run into my date (I haven’t seen her in years, obviously) you’ll also say ‘Thank you’.