Being Authentic To Yourself

by Mariella Garcia

During the school year, some students are not genuine with themselves. Some reasons why students might not act like who they truly are is because they want to fit in and feel accepted in school. Being yourself is necessary to comfortably get through the school year. An advantage of being who you are at school is that it will make you happier with yourself and with others. There are damaging outcomes if you are not true to yourself, but don't worryー being genuine to yourself won't be arduous as you think it is. 

Having healthy self-esteem is the key to being yourself as an individual. There are a plethora of ways to achieve a healthy self-esteem. Some ideas to be able to obtain that is to focus on your strengths instead of your weaknesses, learn and engage in hobbies that you might love, and focus more on what you can do with the future rather than grieving on past mistakes. You can find things you are good at through school clubs, talking to people who have similar interests as you, or even subjects in school. Connecting with people that care about you and truly value you as an individual can help you find yourself. They can help you lift you up when they make you feel valued and when they support you with problems or goals you have.

Even your parents or guardians, and your teachers can help you have a healthy self-esteem. Parents, teachers, and guardians can also help their child(s) or student(s) have a healthy self-esteem. The adults in a student's life often hold a large amount of influence for the child. These adults can utilize this influence for the better by putting a stop to harsh, unhelpful criticism and praising students' effort, progress, and attitude. Harsh criticism is detrimental to a child(ren) or student(s)'s self-esteem, and won't assist them to find themselves. Instead of harsh criticism, adults can help child(ren) focus on what they want them to do differently next time. Praising your child(ren) or student(s) on their effort, progress, or attitude on something they aren't the best at will help boost their confidence in themselves and find who they are. Teachers, guardians, and parents can also help their child(ren) or student(s) by allowing them to let their creativity explore to help them find things they love and be flexible with it. There are tons of ways to assist with how adults and others can help one find themself and be authentic by having a healthy self-esteem.

Students with healthy self-esteem feel accepted, confident, proud of the things they do and think good things about themselves. Students who have low self-esteem don't think highly of themselves, believe that they aren't as good as their peers, and lack confidence in themselves. Having low self-esteem is detrimental to students' mental and physical health. Living with low self-esteem can be detrimental to mental health and have problems such as depression and anxiety. Students living with low self-esteem can even damage their physical health by adopting bad habits such as drinking, self-harm, and smoking to cope with the pain they have. These reasons, plus many more, should encourage students to work on improving their self-esteem, with vital support and assistance from people who cherish them for who they are.

As you can see, having a healthy self-esteem is crucial to finding and being yourself during the school year. Being true to yourself is much better for mental and physical health than acting like somebody who is not you, and taking time to get to know yourself is a great investment. Teachers, peers, guardians, and parents can all help you boost your self-esteem and find who you are. Therefore, you should put in the effort and ask people who genuinely care about you to help you achieve healthy self-esteem to be uniquely you, and stay true to who you are.