Despite your fears, the people you love to work with love what you’re hiding under your mask. (We all wear them.)
The rest of them might surprise you if you take your mask off. You’ll never know until you try.
What do you think is hiding under there? Despite what many of us believe, your authentic self is just as good at your job as you are. S/he’s been coming to work every day with you all your life. S/he may be a little exuberant when you let her/him out after years of cooped-upness, but let her/him breathe the air of freedom and she’ll either calm down or lead you into a new, more exciting adventure than the one you’re already on. Authenticity is all you have, really. You have nothing to lose.
And everything to gain. People trust your authentic self more. People like to work with, promote and recommend people they trust.
How to take off a mask you don’t realize you’re wearing? (Most of us don’t.) Find one thing you’re afraid to say or do at work and find a way to say or do it anyway. Ask yourself, “If I am true to this ______ about me at the office, without disrupting our work or making me less effective, what would that look like?” And then try it.
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate ~Carl Jung
