I think it’s advising people that others can pretty easily see and sense when you’re being anything less than authentic. And they will react negatively even if your inauthentic self involves being an angel, to all and sundry.
They may not be able to put their finger on exactly what is putting them off about you. But they’ll often prefer any less ideal individual if he gives off a truly authentic vibe.
People have a pretty good spider sense about this kind of thing, in my opinion.
A sports analogy would be “Play your game, not your opponents game.” Think of golf. Focus on hitting your own shot, don’t worry about what the other guy is doing - especially don’t worry about what the other guys thinks of you!
To me, to boil it down, the phrase “be yourself” is too abstract, I prefer to focus on “don’t worry about what they think about you”, that is more concrete.
It’s great advice, except when this happens.
“Just be yourself!”
<is self>
“Oh. That’s you? Nevermind.”
No, that’s fine. I learned in school the hard way: not everyone is going to like you. Period. Fact of life. And the trick is really, truly realizing that it doesn’t matter. It’s ok for people to not like you, and it’s ok to not like other people. When you’re trying too hard to please others, to like and be liked, you’ll often lose track of yourself (and that’s part of what “Just be yourself” is out to correct). Now, that isn’t to say that you shouldn’t try to grow and be a better human being. Don’t resist good change and trying new things. But at the end of the day you’re still yourself, and not everyone’s going to like it. If that means your date decides they don’t want any more dates, it means you’re incompatible. And finding that out is a good thing rather than trying to force and make it work despite your inner nature.
I’ve known who I was for a long time. The hard part was reconciling that against how everyone else would judge me. The world judges harshly, if you let it. The trick is to stop letting it - and be yourself, unafraid, and value yourself personally.
Another Doper once mentioned a quote: “You have to be yourself, but it has to be the *right *you.”
You don’t want to put on a fake appearance or persona, but at the same time, if you have offensive, sloppy, rude, inconsiderate or repulsive tendencies (that can be fixed), then “just being yourself” could be a recipe for failure or backlash.
Too often, people mistake the former for the latter and the latter for the former. Some will advise, “You can’t just be yourself” (you can’t pick boogers in public, make crude jokes, wear flip-flops everywhere) but the recipient will take it to mean “I need to put on a totally artificial fake persona,” and then some will advise, “You should just be yourself” and the recipient will take it to mean, “I’ll retain and display all of my bad habits in public.”
Keep it real— unless you’re a real asshole. Then feel free to fake it up a bit.
I agree that it is useless advice if taken at face value. That said, there is something to be said for self-acceptance and not running yourself ragged trying to make yourself be something you’re not.
Some personality traits can be improved upon. For instance, if you’re too self-absorbed to show interest in other people and its costing you relationships, that can be changed with a fair amount of mindfulness and purposeful action. But some aspects of personality need to be accepted as is, because even if they are “bad”, they are not amenable to change without sacrificing too much.
For instance, I’m not very smiley. Even though I’m generally a happy and contented person, my default facial expression is rather serious looking. It is what it is. “Being myself” means accepting this and not attempting to hide it or apologize for it. It also means that when I was dating, I didn’t worry about whether my face scared away suitors, because I knew that the right guy would be someone who wouldn’t object to my face.
Perhaps it’s not always clear when self-improvement is indicated versus self-acceptance, but with so pressure out there to conform to various ideals, “be yourself” isn’t completely garbage.
If I had to sum it up in as few words as possible, I’d interpret it as “Don’t let peer pressure define you”.