Authenticity is often misunderstood.

A common misunderstanding is that being authentic means always saying what you think.

Authenticity is an ongoing and lifelong process of personal development.

Authenticity is one of my key interests. In my experience, striving to live authentically is one of the most important things a person can do for a richer and more fulfilling life, and the research seems to back this up.

But authenticity is often misunderstood, most commonly as meaning you should always say what you think or feel. In turn, this makes authenticity, or at least this straw-man version of it, easy pickings for critics, who paint it as a trivial topic, a vacuous self-help idea that peddles unrealistic dreams and is not to be taken seriously.

The straw-man version of authenticity is easy to mock, but so are any complicated ideas that are not readily understood. In this post, I wish to set the record straight.

1. Authenticity is not about just saying whatever is on your mind.

This is the first myth about authenticity. Authenticity is first and foremost about knowing ourselves and taking responsibility for our decisions, and only then deciding how to behave with others—whether it is the time and place to express ourselves openly and........

© Psychology Today