How to Create Authentic Relationships with Others

Do you ever wonder why your relationships don't feel as authentic or as genuine as you would really like them to feel? Do you ever wonder why you feel like a fraud? We've been talking about feeling like a fraud and wearing a mask for a couple of weeks now. You see, the secret to authentic relationships lies in embracing your true self. Let's dive into how loving yourself Being kind to yourself and not abandoning your voice can absolutely transform every one of your connections. This is Lead with Confidence Now, the podcast that helps you grow your confidence. My name is Travia Steward, and I've spent 27 years transforming lives. My mission is to help you grow your confidence by improving your self-image so that you can perform better in all areas of your life. Today we're talking about how embracing more— this is our continuing episode, this theme that we're doing— how embracing more of your authentic relationship starts with who? It starts with you. Yes, you, because you already hold the power to transform every one of your connections. Believe it or not, it's really up to you and the decisions and the choices that you make and how you show up. So as we get into it, I wanna talk about my journey because I don't want it to come off like I have everything figured out because I don't. I don't wanna seem like I'm up here sitting on like some rock and I'm looking down at everybody else who is like, you know, you figure it out, people. No, no, I am consistently and consciously right now doing this work every single day that I wanna share with you because I have seen so many benefits from it and how much it's improved my life, how much it's improved my clients' lives. Because you see, for a long time I was a chronic people pleaser. I couldn't bear to say no to anyone, like at work. You know, I remember when I first started teaching, I was the person, the go-to person for extra task, extra duties at work. Do you wanna sponsor this event? Yeah, Trey will do it. Do you wanna do this club? Yep, I'll do it. You, how about coach this? Yep, I'll do it. Because I was always eager to please other people, eager to please my colleagues, eager to please my boss. And then when it came down to my personal life, like with my friends, I found myself saying yes all the time with them. Engaging in activities that I didn't really wanna do, that I didn't really enjoy because I just wanted to be liked. And so saying yes to all these things always just made me feel so exhausting. And the turning point for me was becoming aware, really learning how it is when I feel when I'm saying yes to doing things that I don't really wanna do. And so I check in with my body first. I learned to do that through my coaching experience and my certifications. And see, that turning point for me was I am aware of my own check engine lights. And when I say yes to something in the moment, it's waiting a few minutes and going, Ooh, what check engine light has just gone off? Am I regretting having said yes to that? Is my chest tight? Are my shoulders tight? Do I feel like I got this big cinder block in my chest, my back, my shoulder area because of just saying yes to doing something that I didn't want to do? And so what I realized, I was always on a quest. It was always my point to make everybody else happy to the point to where I was neglecting my own needs in so many different areas of my life, completely neglecting what I wanted and how I wanted to do it. I didn't even know what I truly wanted anymore because I was so focused on meeting everyone else's expectations. I was so— focus on saying yes to everything. And so what happened was I began learning to say no. I began listening to my body and figuring out, is this thing going to add value to my life? Am I going to find myself going, ah, can't get those 2 hours back, can't get those 3 hours back? And if I can decide in advance and be intentional that this is something I wanna do and I will find value in it and I will have a good time and it will be worthwhile spending the time, then I'm a full yes. But outside of that, I'm not a full yes. And so just this transformation, learning to say that little 2-letter word, no, was transformational in my life. It was so incredibly freeing. Because as I began to say no, that I don't wanna do that, and I didn't have to explain myself. No, I just don't wanna do it because I used to overexplain things, right? So now I've learned, I don't wanna do that, I just say no. And I recognize how my commitment to myself grew and grew and grew. And this was yet another way that I learned that I was didn't have to wear a mask anymore. I was not pretending that I wanted to do something when I really didn't. My relationships with my friends and with my partner improved drastically. Like today, I hadn't recorded my podcast episode yet, and my partner texted me this morning from work and she said, "Hey, do you want to go and grab some drinks later? Later on, blah, blah, blah, blah." You know, a group of us are getting together doing this thing. Well, I knew I hadn't done what I needed to do in getting this podcast out because truth be told, getting the podcast out now is a definite bigger commitment. Before I used to just do audio, upload it to YouTube. Now it's the whole thing with getting the transcripts, it's getting on video, it's doing the titles, SEO. And so it takes a lot longer than just recording it and uploading. But I didn't hesitate. I thought about it for just a second. I thought about it. I went, this was this morning, I had some coaching calls. And so I was like, you know what? If I were to say yes to this, I will rush through the podcast. I will rush and get these things done. And I don't believe it will be at the quality and the level that I really wanna do it. And so I said, no. I'm gonna pass. That was great. Now, I tell you what, nobody loves a good happy hour more than me. Maybe there's a few of you out there who love it, but I love a good happy hour. I love to go and have deep conversations with people over beer, but I know where my priorities are. And my priority is to you, it's to this podcast, it's to putting out my best work. So that was an example of me saying no just today. And I tell you what, it's hard for me to say no to Shelly because she don't ask for much. And so when she does ask, you know, but I also have to go, this is what I really need for myself. Because what happens is I know how I feel if I go against what I know I need. So Putting myself first was something that I learned to do, you know, through my coaching journey, through working with my own coaches, because I recognize that many of us spend our lives trying to meet other people's expectations. And we're constantly asking, well, what does everybody else want from me? You know, that was me for a long time, which led to such a high level of exhaustion. And you, so, I believe that we have all been programmed to believe that putting ourselves first is a terrible thing. It's bad. You should not be so selfish to put yourself first. Everyone else in your life has to come first. Your kids have to come first. Your husband has to come first. All those things. And you put yourself last. And so what it looks like, if there was a metaphorical line, you would be the last person in the line trying to get your needs met, like trying to get a drink of water, and there is an empty cup that you're trying to pour from because you haven't filled your cup first. So that's one of the things I want you to think about today is prioritizing your needs so that we're not spending our lives trying to meet other people's expectations. Instead, we wanna shift our focus to what we actually want, what we actually need that brings joy, that fills our cup, that gives us what I need. Because when you prioritize your desires and live more authentically and attract the people who appreciate the real you, that's when life, I believe, begins to get so rich and so Prioritizing your needs is not a bad thing. It's what you, what we all need to do. And so one of the things that I noticed about myself was, you see, it took me a long time to come to grips with my sexuality. And guys, you know, it's gotten to a point to where I don't hold back on these podcast episodes anymore because I want to be real with you. I don't want to be standing up here being a hypocrite and be like, be real, be authentic. If not, I'm not going to be. So for years I struggled with my sexuality and what I realized, I'm always continually doing the work. I'm a very confident person, but what I recognized was in doing the work, I needed to figure out how to love all of me, how to love the gay part of me, how to love the part of me that has built a life with a female. Because self-love is the foundation of every authentic relationship, every intimate relationship. If you don't love yourself first, it, you know, because when you love yourself, you set a standard for how others, how you want others to treat you. And it's really about recognizing your worth and treating yourself with such a high level of respect, a high level of kindness. And so every day when you get up and you declare, because I don't believe in affirmations anymore, I believe in declarations. Every day in order to increase that self-love and acceptance of accepting all of you, you wanna start your day declaring, I am worthy, I am enough, I deserve this. And then we prioritize activities that make us feel good. You prioritize activities that make you feel good, whether it's a hobby, exercise, or simply taking time to just relax because why? You need to relax and you wanna relax and you don't have to explain that to anyone. You want to relax and you probably are an adult listening to this podcast and you can make these decisions. And so in that, learning to say no to things that absolutely drain you and make you unhappy ultimately leads to you protecting your peace. Because you see, self-compassion and you thinking about what it is that you need, that is also crucial for building authentic relationship. Because being kind to yourself, loving yourself, forgiving yourself for mistakes and not carrying that baggage into your next relationship, into your next experience with someone. It is actually viewing yourself and understanding why you do the things that you do and just actually just being a witness to it, right? Being aware that this is why I'm doing it. Oh, that's why. So we wanna be kind and we wanna be nonjudgmental to ourselves first because I know we always go, let's not judge other people, but you know what? Let's not judge ourselves. Because we want this self-kindness to extend to how we treat others, but it begins with us. It begins with us. It begins with you. And so when you catch yourself being critical in your thinking, you know, I did a post on Instagram and LinkedIn the other day about pulling these weeds, you know, because we live in Arizona, we live in the desert, but you know what? Those weeds don't need watering. They pop up no matter what. The weeds in my yard are like those negative thoughts in your mind, and we want to pluck those things out. And so when you're being self-critical, pause and go, where is this thought coming from? I wanna reframe that thought and give myself some self-love, acceptance, and compassion. So practicing this level of mindfulness and just staying present and sort of acknowledging yourself without judgment, being aware without the judgment. And so when we do that, we are able to just go, hmm, this is why I said this thing. This is the thought that I'm having that's causing me to abandon my own voice and my truth. Because in actuality, what we do is we all walk around asking, what does everybody want from me? What does everybody need from me? Social media, the interwebs, all the things, my partner, my friends, my boss, what does everybody want from me? And I will acquiesce and oblige them. But what happens is we end up abandoning our values, our truth. Because what happens is once we no longer begin, we, once we stop flexing that muscle of speaking the truth, of being yourself, then we start having connections that are inauthentic. We start having connections that are very, very shallow. And so what happens is we are in a search, we all want, and I, I totally believe this. We all want real connections with each other. We all want to know that our voice matters, that we matter. You know, I got this flask from Brendan Burchard's Influencer, Live, Love, Matter. We all want to know that, that we matter. And it's in how we share our thoughts with others, our feelings, and what we need from other people that helps us to know that we matter. And so in order to counteract this whole walking around asking, "What does everyone want from me?" because we're not all living as our authentic selves, I want you to remind yourself that your thoughts and your feelings are valid., and they are worth sharing. And so what I want us to do is, and guys, when I say us, I really mean us, myself included. What I want us to do is get away from always checking in with yourself, with myself, as to how we should be showing up according to what others think, and what other people want and need from us because we are always adjusting to what society, what the external world wants us to do. And then you know what? They give us opinion. We have these things that we're like, these are guideposts in life on how I'm gonna show up. And then we assume that other people are right. Their opinions of us are right. And we take those things and we choose, we decide that they must be right. Since they are right, we need to adjust what we're doing and saying in the moment, the opinions that we have, and change. And then when we don't go along with what we think other people want us to do, we feel rejected, we feel criticized, we get canceled, right? Or even punished in some way. And I, for one, am leaning more into You know what? These are my genuine thoughts. This is what I really feel. This is my honest opinion. And you know what? It's okay to repel the people that, that don't align with you. And I'm not saying that we all have to be in a cult, a tribe, a group. But if you feel like you have to hide who you are with some of the people that you spend time with, Maybe that is a relationship that we want to recreate, reassess, recalibrate, right? All the things, because I want you to get used to prioritizing you. So in our authentic relationships, we all have a need to feel and be seen and heard. And communicating our emotional needs is crucial, you know, because if you can't share those things, especially those intimate parts of you with the person that means the most to you, then we wanna revisit that and figure out what is the thought that I'm having? How do I feel like that other person's gonna judge me if I say this thing that I really believe in or really wanna say? And so I want you to ask yourself, who are you in your intimate relationships? Have you lost yourself? And just become aware of how you're showing up with different people in different environments. And be aware of how you adjust, right? That thermostat, how you adjust to other people's interests, other people's, you know, whatever they wanna talk about, other people's opinions. Maybe there are sometimes where you silence yourself. So as I wrap up this episode, I want you to think about a couple of steps that you can take today to begin to fully use your voice, to fully show up as the whole you, the you that has the freedom to be the person that you came here to be. And so I want you to ask yourself, when, with who are you the most you, where you feel like you can just lay it all on the line. And then what we want to do is one small step at a time. How can I be a little more honest in my opinion? How can I be a little more honest in how I dress? How can I be a little more honest in my— in what we're talking about? Showing up a little more honest, a little more authentically, leads to a domino effect of other things beginning to embrace and love and fully accept who you are. So my peeps, authentic relationships, they start with, with really loving who you are and who you came here to be. Being kind to yourself, prioritizing yourself, putting your needs first so that you can pour from a full cup and then not abandoning your voice. And by embracing these principles, you honestly begin to create and build more genuine connections in your life. And I want to end this episode with a Carl Jung quote. And one of the things I heard Viola Davis say this on a YouTube video, the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are. That's a privilege. We were all sent here to this earth to be someone specific, not be like someone else. We were all sent here to be who we truly are. So my peeps, if you are ready to transform your life and build authentic relationships with your, your spouse, with your friends, Let's take that next step together. Imagine having me as your personalized guide to help you boost your confidence and help you peel back the layers to embracing your true self. So I want you to click the link in the show notes right below and schedule your one-on-one coaching session with me. I will gift you that first strategy call with me, and together through this work, we will work work on unlocking your full potential and creating the life and the relationships that you truly deserve. Don't wait on this thing because nobody's promised tomorrow. Let's go get that confidence. Let's build that layer, that level, that foundation so you can boldly ask for what you want and what you know in your heart you deserve. All right, my peeps, we'll talk next—