Belonging & Being Authentic

Cleelia Uudam Costa
2 min readJul 5, 2024

Never let the choice between belonging and being authentic keep you from living your life to the fullest.

Photo by Drew Dizzy Graham on Unsplash

Our innate need is to belong.

Only that..

We often choose to follow (the expectations of) others in order to avoid judgement and to fit in. To belong.

[I am terribly guilty of this myself and an ongoing work in progress!]

While this can be a safe short-term strategy, it can never work as a long-term strategy.

Your true self will catch up with you sooner or later.

Your true self will keep whispering to you your truth and it is impossible to switch it off.

The most common regret of dying people is:

I wish I’d had the courage
to live a life true to myself,
not the life others expected of me.

In case you too are choosing belonging over being authentic, then maybe it is time to stop..

True belonging can only be created through being authentic.

What is belonging worth if you cannot be yourself?

If you have to be who somebody else wants you to be, are you truly being yourself?

And watch out for YOUR own subjective interpretations of external expectations — your thoughts…

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Cleelia Uudam Costa
Cleelia Uudam Costa

Written by Cleelia Uudam Costa

Writing to inspire people to grow into their best version living their dream life. Life & Business Coach. Entrepreneur. PhD. Mom of 4. www.cleeliauudamcosta.com