How to Be More Authentic and Live as Your Truest Self – Verywell Mind

How to Live With Authenticity and Be Your Truest Self

By Rachael Green, Updated on August 25, 2025

Key Takeaways

• Mindfulness can help you pay attention to what you really want and feel.
• Figuring out your core values and acting on them is key to being your true self.
• Reflecting before making decisions helps ensure they align with who you are.

While there is no universally agreed-upon definition of what authenticity means, researchers generally describe it as a state of self-awareness and self-determination that allows a person to act in ways that align with their core values, beliefs, and psychological needs.

In that sense, being authentic can be just as important for your wellbeing as food, shelter, and sleep. Just as you would eat when you’re hungry or sleep when you’re tired, you need to act in ways that fulfill those core values and emotional needs.  

What Is Authenticity in Positive Psychology?

In an article published in New Ideas in Psychology, researchers identified the following four components of authenticity:1

1. Experience, or paying full attention to your present environment and internal state.
2. Understanding, or reflecting on that present experience to better understand the connections between your thoughts, feelings, and actions.
3. Judgment, which is meant more in the analytical sense of identifying whether or not this experience aligns with your core values and fulfills your psychological needs.
4. Decision, or choosing a response to this experience that is aligned with those values and psychological needs.

In short, authenticity is about paying attention to all of the relevant details in a situation and making decisions based on what feels most in sync with your true self.

What Is an Example of an Authentic Person?

In theory, that four-part process sounds simple enough. But what does that actually look like in practice? What is the “self” and how do you know your acting in sync with it?

In psychology, the self refers to a collection of ideas we each have about who we are. This includes our various social roles like parent, hiker, and nurse as well as secondary traits like curious, generous, or ambitious.2 Most of us define ourselves according to multiple roles and traits, all of which are true, but not all of which can be aligned in every situation.

For example, the nurse who is also a parent may often encounter situations where the two roles conflict. Maybe they’re scheduled to work on the night of the school play. Maybe their child gets sick the morning before they’re supposed to go to work.

An authentic person doesn’t try to pick any one of these many dimensions as their truest self. Instead, they constantly self-reflect and look for balance. Being authentic is about identifying all of the aspects of yourself that matter to you and making sure that you’re acting in ways that align with each of them, even if some situations require you to privilege one aspect over others.

Why Is It Hard to Be Fully Authentic?

As fulfilling as it can be to live authentically, actually doing so all the time can be difficult for a lot of people. People with mental illnesses, for example, often don’t feel safe or encouraged to be authentic. “There is still a great deal of stigma surrounding mental illness,” said Dr. Sam Zand, psychiatrist and founder of the Anywhere Clinic. “This can make it difficult for people to talk about their experiences or seek help without fear of judgment or discrimination.”

Beyond fearing judgment or discrimination, certain conditions can make it hard to achieve those four components of authenticity defined earlier. “Schizophrenia or some personality disorders can make it difficult for a person to understand their own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors,” Dr. Sand explained. He also noted that these and other conditions like depression, anxiety, or trauma can erode a person’s sense of trust in their own thoughts, feelings, and values.

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