Authenticity

Written by DANIELA PAGNINI

One of the most beautiful feelings is the one where you truly perceive yourself as you are. When you experience it, you can really feel good and with a special energy, you feel fulfilled. It's a wonderful feeling.

It’s the feeling I have sought the most in my personal and professional life, the one where you realize that you are not doing or acting to be appreciated, to please someone, to meet an expectation, to gain an advantage or power, or for any other personal gain, but to feel in full harmony with your choices and with who you are.

Every time I’ve faced choices and changes - many in my professional experience and in my life - I’ve always asked myself and continue to ask myself every day: “Why am I making this choice? Which of my needs does it address? What costs am I willing to bear?” These questions have helped me, and still help me, to keep a coherent line with my values and with the paths I have chosen to undertake, keeping the compass of direction always pointed to my values, goals, and projects.

This is what I reflect on and offer, in my role as a coach, to be an authentic coach. This is essential to establish a bond of trust and to facilitate genuine change in the person in front of me.

Only by deeply touching the strings of a profound authenticity, the dance that ignites and develops between coach and coachee, generates the necessary energies for transformation. My authenticity allows my coachees to feel free to be themselves, to feel welcomed, and to have a space in which to take care of themselves, without judgment, without evaluation, without camouflage, so that they too can answer authentically to the powerful questions: “Why am I acting this way?” “Why am I making or not making this choice or taking this action?” “Which need am I responding to?” “Is it in line with my values?” “Does it make me feel like myself?”

Authenticity is my key to generating full transparency, the ability to connect, and honesty without filters.

It hasn’t always been easy, even for me, as anyone who has met or knows me knows that this characteristic is intrinsic to my personality and professionalism, but there have been challenges in wanting to be authentic and act as such, the fear of being judged or the fear of showing our vulnerabilities, which push us, in meeting others, to always show our best sides, to show ourselves at our best, without letting the more fragile parts of us emerge, or the aspects we consider less attractive. It is not about deception, but about a behavior that is required and to which we have perhaps been educated, to gain approval, merit, recognition, visibility, and professional growth. However, the risk we run is that our balance is altered and that, in trying to adapt to the context and environment, we try to adapt to an external ideal, thus betraying our values and no longer being ourselves.

My personal choice is not to force my values and adapt them to the context, but to try to build and surround myself with an environment that is as aligned as possible to who I am, to who I wanted to become, and to who I still want to evolve into. Being aware of who I am, of my strengths and weaknesses, gives me my boundaries and limits, but it also allows me to know my resources, what I am good at, and how I can use those resources.

Who am I? Finding an authentic answer is a journey; it’s each person’s journey. In my coaching practice, I constantly come across the attempt to measure performance by the coachees and in comparing themselves to others. I always try to create new spaces for experimental gyms, where they can learn something new about themselves. When we manage to have a strong awareness of ourselves in the different phases of our lives, we can act with authenticity and live in line with our values.

I like and it makes me feel naturally and authentically myself, supporting people in their phases of transformation, helping them search for and orient the focus of their own compasses, to try that wonderful and unique feeling of well-being, of truly perceiving themselves as they are.

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