Lose that mask and love your true self

How we perceive ourselves often causes us to wear a mask, but once you learn to love yourself you, there you will find success and fulfilment

It’s often said that you’re your own best friend and worst enemy.  There’s many reasons behind that, but one of the big ones is how you see yourself.

One of the most common problems we see in society today, is that people put on facades, or masks.

Why we wear a mask

I spent 20 years working as a corporate lawyer, and I was expected to put on a mask.

As lawyers we sometimes played roles our clients didn’t want to play themselves, so putting on a mask was taking on a role. But the sad fact is that even when we weren’t playing roles we had masks on.

This isn’t just the lawyers either. Almost everybody wears a mask, and that mask is worn because we are not completely comfortable with ourselves. We see ourselves as not lovable by others, and so need to pretend to be somebody else.

How much of a mask we wear varies directly with how much we love ourselves and think that we are acceptable by others. The extent that we feel we cannot be loved, is the extent to which we “mask up”.

The long term effect of wearing a mask

The sad thing is that by constantly wearing that mask, we slowly lose our own identity. But the human spirit doesn’t give up without a fight. We were created with a mission, something God put in our hearts. That identity never dies, but starts to feel trapped and frustrated when we are constantly behind a mask.

I left the corporate world over a year ago by this stage. I have been unmasking ever since, learning to love myself.

Four months into me starting my business, one of my mentors told me that the secret to success is to be just be myself. Take every mask off. When you are yourself, without a mask, no one in the world can compete with you, because you are unique, and if anyone tries to copy you, they’ll never be better at being you than you.

In the internet economy, there’s enough people around that it doesn’t matter that some people don’t like you, there are more than enough people who like you for you, without a mask, for you to build your business around.

The positive effect of losing that mask

That must have been one of the best pieces of advice I ever received. Because, just by being myself, I managed to fully replace my income within 2 months of receiving that piece of advice. Of course that wasn’t easy, in fact, shedding the corporate mask must have been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it is achievable in a step by step process.

Success is just the first part of the equation. As you start to see that people do like you for who you are, you start to become confident, your other God given qualities start to bloom and shine.

The end result is fulfilment. First from the frustration of not being able to be yourself just going away, and then the deep fulfilment of knowing that you are living your purpose in life.

Only you can decide – will you choose to be your own best friend or worst enemy?