A part of being transparent and honest, and also releasing perfectionism, is realizing that you don’t always have to “put on a show” or “act” for others. What I mean by this is that we have to learn to come out of performance mode, becoming someone else to appease others.

Most of us that have been living life in performance mode (meaning we do not present our authentic selves) started doing so as a defense mechanism to some form of rejection or abandonment. The thought process may have been that if I show up as my authentic self, I will be shunned or not accepted. We may have been made to believe that in order to get where we need to go or to get the things that we want out of life, we must become a different person. The concern here isn’t when we adjust for a brief period of time, it is when we spend so much of our life performing for others that we are no longer in tune with who we are.

We must learn who we are at our core before we can begin to change. And for many of us, this change will be the catalyst that transforms our mindsets and sets us on a path of mental-emotional wellness.