We live in a world where relevance counts more than ever. Our happiness, our relationships and our income depends on how relevant and important we are to other people.

We're constantly questioning if our writing, our product or service is good enough. Is it contributing to the world and can it stand the test of time.

Whether you are relevant or not, depends a lot on your point of view. But let's see what skills and personal growing one can do to become a person of influence in 2017.

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Find your true, authentic self

In the thousands of things we can do at any moment, we tend to lose our authentic selves. With outside influences, stories we read and create for ourselves and media programming we put all these masks that hide who we truly are. We start looking at the world to tell us who we should be.

Being authentic means knowing who you are on a deepest level and then acting like that when dealing with other people, without being phony or trying to be somebody else.

Tune into who you really are. Notice those activities that you are good at and enjoy doing at the same time. Discover topics that you're really interested that you can explore on Steemit in the upcoming year.

Authenticity is not about expressing opinions all the time. We all form opinions about everything, but voicing them constantly will more likely be viewed as obnoxious. Authenticity is about realness and not trying to beautify the truth. It's easier to be phony and to speak what others want to hear, and it takes courage to be authentic.

Someone might be the smartest person in the room, but can still learn from everyone if he's open for feedback. So don't judge yourself because you're not perfect. Don't look at your past mistakes and limitations from the pain point. Instead, laugh at it, but always try to figure out what you can do better.

Authenticity is the essential part of relevance, because if you don't know who you really are and what's your purpose, you can't possibly influence others.

When you have the courage to be real amazing things happen.

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Be more empathetic

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Empathy can be defined as an ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes, to understand what they are going through and share their experiences and emotions. Most people experience empathy from time to time - maybe by feeling bad and giving 50 cents to the homeless guy on the street or by comforting a friend who didn't get her dream job.

Being empathetic when it comes to your business, customer support or your Steemit blog is very important if you want to make an impact. Without this skill you won't be able to collaborate effectively with your readers, to feel their needs and make best decisions accordingly. Empathy will help you understand your audience and create solutions for their problems.

Even though the concept of empathy may feel like a contradiction to the modern cutthroat competitiveness, jumping over one another to get to the top, every inspiring leader in any field has to relate to people he serves.

Cultivate it by being curious and taking interesting in other people's lives, by really opening up and inspiring massive actions and changes.

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Master your skills + take more action

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The two are inseparable and equally important. When you understand who you truly are and what interests you the most, it's time to master the craft. Time to adopt that curious mindset of being a free entity that loves learning every day and having fun.

If you have no useful skills, you can't offer much to your potential customers, bosses or Steemit followers. But mastery is not only about obtaining skills necessary for the job at hand. It is an art of approaching to life with a desire of proactive creation, instead of just reacting to circumstances.

Go back to your childlike self and become endlessly curious about the things around you. That way creative energy will flow through you constantly, leading you to new, brilliant ideas.

Mastery should include lifelong improvement in both professional and personal areas. To achieve it, one must step away from his comfort zone and push through the initial pain period.

After this period it's time to put your boldness, confidence and skills to test. We are all familiar with that Mark Twain quote, but still, something holds us back when the moment to make the decision and take the plunge comes. But it's always better to try and even fail, than to wonder what could have been. Being safe is what's risky. If you're truly living authentically, then you have to trust your gut and your skills. Everything will fall into place over time.

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Images: 1, 2, 3

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Hope you like this! If you do, don't forget to upvote and resteem it. It's been an amazing year here on Steemit, so make sure to follow @alcibiades to stay updated about more awesomeness in 2017.