Given the recent U.S. election results, many of us are struggling. Even though many of us have gone through times when we couldn’t bring our true selves to work, due to various reasons such as health problems, personal struggles or job-related stress, this one feels extra hard.
The Bowman Foundation’s recent study found that 73% of employees report having a mental health disorder, and only 27% say they’ve disclosed their diagnosis to their employers. This is perhaps due to past experiences or the fear of retaliation, people are afraid to be their full selves at work. This means that a vast majority of employees are suffering from burnout or mental-health issues, yet they do not feel psychologically safe sharing that with their employers.
Holding back from expressing your full self at work has consequences of which these are 5 major ones:
- Work may feel less fulfilling, leading to reduced job satisfaction.
- Reduced contribution, due to not being able to fully engage.
- People cannot see your full potential; it can fuel inaccurate assumptions about you.
- It can create a barrier to connecting with others.
- Suppressing your authenticity increases stress and risk of burnout.
My Story
This year, I met Frans van Loef in a mastermind program. Frans specializes in offloading, his method for freeing up capacity, which creates head space and hand space. With my focus on allyship, helping leaders support others different from themselves in the workplace, at first glance we appeared to be teaching two completely different skill sets, but when combined we realized they create a powerful toolkit for authenticity.
I decided to pause my participation in the mastermind program due to some unexpected health issues, yet remained in touch with Frans. Frans checked in regularly asking me about my health and wishing me well, and I learned through his frequent check-ins that it was okay to be vulnerable and admit I was struggling. Raised with the need to please, as many women are, I felt rude venting about my health issues or being honest about not being “fine” when people asked the dreaded “How are you doing?” question.
Frans approached our conversations in a way well-practiced allies do he came from a place of genuine caring and curiosity. He immediately sensed my internal struggle. as I was torn between what I wanted and what was feasible due to my health constraints and challenging client workload. I was assuming that I had to abandon all of my 2024 plans to take better care of myself and keep my business running.
Frans asked me, “Knowing that there will be new opportunities in 2025, what is the best choice for you right now?” That helped me refocus on what was possible versus fixating on what was missing. While some goals were no longer feasible in 2024, pivoting to what was possible helped me embrace my authenticity more. While I was disappointed life was not going according to plan, there were still possibilities, even in the shorter term.
Allies Create Space for Authenticity
Allies create space for hard conversations and encourage authentic dialogue. My allyship with Frans helped me uncover the power of authenticity through sharing and embracing the messiness of life together, not alone. To better understand this power of authenticity when life is hard, it is important to:
- Own your story
- Offload
- Shift your mindset
How authentically do you show up at work? How much can you be your full self at work? Be honest. The answer is likely that you’re not doing it as often as you might like to. That is because we often mask hardships for fear that people will think less of us or use them against us. Or they might be afraid to share their vulnerabilities due to deep-rooted fears of vulnerability, or past negative experiences sharing their difficulties.
According to Simmons University’s Institute for Inclusive Leadership, when people feel a sense of belonging, they are 70% more likely to be engaged because they can be more of their authentic selves at work.Undoing beliefs is not easy.
Own Your Story
Knowing that others are also experiencing mental hardships can encourage others to step into their authenticity. You are not alone! And by sharing their stories they might inspire others to share their stories. Even the seemingly stoic American National Football League has been campaigning to dismantle negative stereotypes about mental health by providing players and staff with mental-health resources and tools like storytelling.
The critical balance with your story is sharing it in a way that inspires others without people retraumatizing themselves or projecting pain onto the audience. There is often a nuanced and complex dance between authenticity and vulnerable, painful emotions. People want to hear stories, even sad stories, which show bravery and courage and have a takeaway that the listener can learn from and be inspired by.
A few years ago, I was asked to give a keynote at a women’s leadership conference. I chose to speak about the inspiration my late mother had on my life. I candidly shared my experiences with grief and the mental-health challenges I experienced after my mother’s death. An ally in the audience came up to me afterwards and hugged me with tears in his eyes and said it was such a sad story. While my intent was to inspire the audience, the story was so raw that it had the opposite effect: instead of getting people in the room excited and inspired, they felt sorry for me instead.
Consider this revision to my story. What if I had started my keynote sharing anecdotes from my relationship with mymother and how my experience with grief drove me to find her purpose and start my own business focused on allyship? Rather than leave the audience deflated, this version is more likely to inspire others to channel their own personal pain points into aha moments for others to learn from and emulate.
Offload
Frans met Gerhard in a period when Gerhard faced a serious challenge: his mother was very ill and needed a lot of help and he was the only person in the family to provide the care. This impacted on how much work he could handle per day. Meanwhile, he tried to give the impression to his colleagues that he was working at full capacity, which was not the reality, and instead, made him feel more insecure. Gerhard agreed he had to lower expectations and offload some duties for the time being, but it felt like he was letting down his colleagues.
One day, Frans asked him, “Do you believe that your colleagues are showing up day after day feeling and working at 100%?” Gerhard thought about it and started to realize that on several occasions he noticed other team members not being at their best. Gerhard discussed this in a team meeting and several colleagues admitted they have had similar experiences. What an eye-opener it was for Gerhard! The team realized that the workload distribution in the team was seldom on par. So, work could be shifted to a colleague who has some free capacity at the moment. The group shared some potential alternatives, which led to two colleagues offloading a number of assignments and one other asking a colleague to help out.
This awareness was a breakthrough for Gerhard and his team. This team now shares their struggles with each other, and they pick up the slack for each other when needed. This fueled the sense of belonging for Gerhard. One other insight they discussed and impacted on how Gerhard felt was accepting the consequence of lower contribution when you know you can’t be at your best.
Shift Your Mindset
The mind shift that helped Gerhard and his team was how he was measuring himself—the “gap versus the gain” (Dr. Benjamin Hardy). Gap thinking (where most of us are) means looking at the distance between where you are and where you want to be (or comparing ourselves to what other people have achieved). When you measure yourself in the gap, you simply cannot be happy. You can be successful, but you will still feel unhappy, frustrated and even like a failure. Gaining thinking (a better mindset) means looking at the progress you have already made. This key mindset shift allows you to recognize how far you’ve actually come. When you do this, you feel happier, more satisfied, and more successful.
As a result of employing this type of thinking, Gerhard felt self-assured. His performance improved, and he was free to be his authentic self while at work. The team agreed to embrace this as a principle for reflecting on team progress.
So, the question for you is, how do you show up daily? Do you always show up as your best self, or does it vary from day to day? Is your workload aligned with what is feasible for that day? (Remember, you are human!) Can you shift from gap thinking to gain thinking? Can you inspire others to do the same?
Feeling unable to show up authentically when life is hard? Here’s the fix: know you’re not alone, craft an inspiring story, offload burdens and shift your mindset.