Can you fake it ’til you make it?

You know how it goes. You’re anxious about a situation, you’re not sure you have what it takes; can you live up to these crushing expectations? And upon confiding in someone about your qualms, you get the oh so reassuring shrug and response: ‘Fake it ‘til you make it!’. But in reality, how feasible is this? And are the effects of it healthy?

I’ve been in two minds about this for a long time and today I think I finally hit the nail on the head. But first, let me explain the two sides of that shiny coin…

1. Yes, definitely fake it ‘til you make it!

I’ve always thought that to achieve this, you need to be extra confident, extra flamboyant, extra-everything-you’re-not. By faking it and putting on a façade that yes- you really are this bubble of positivity, confidence, and power- you’ll eventually form a habit. A health psychology researcher at University College London conducted a study and found that it takes 18 days to form a habit, and 66 days for it to become an automatic behaviour. So you could argue that by forcing yourself out of your comfort zone and mimicking behaviours seen in others, you can slowly adopt these characteristics as your own and be the person you want to be. Hmm.

2. Nope, fake it ‘til you break it…

Faking personal traits to make yourself seem something you’re not is exhausting. I know we’ve all been there. Perhaps it was a job interview: you felt tiny, shy, unknowledgeable… but you strode in, smiled, shook their hand, asked questions, answered questions, acted like you knew.your.shit. Of course, some people are naturally like this! But if you’re not (which is not a bad thing), it can be hard to pretend to be this way even for a short while. Eventually, you may lose track of who you are, what you’re doing, and yup… break.

Faced in situations like this- job interviews, networking events at university and so on- I’ve struggled a lot. I’m not a naturally hugely extraverted person, but in the right frame of mind I can put on a good show. But equally, there have been times that I’m too tired and anxious to even try and push myself to act this way. And the outcome of this is so much worse than if you didn’t bother faking it and were true to yourself in the first place!

And that’s when it clicked.

Maybe where we are going wrong with the whole concept of ‘faking it ‘til you make it’ is that we skip the stage where we manifest it within ourselves. Instead, we jump straight to a stage of trying to project it onto other people. It’s never going to work! How can we ever make a story believable unless we believe in it ourselves?

If you have a vision of how you want to be, to perform, or to present yourself to new or influential people, I think it is so important not to merely fake it before first communicating it to yourself. If you want to be more confident, it might not be the most successful tactic to rock up somewhere and force yourself to act this way, when you have no strategy of how to achieve this. After all, if you knew the answer, you wouldn’t be struggling with adopting it in the first place.

So, how can we manifest these goals within ourselves before blindly stumbling into the world exercising them? Through affirmations. Affirmations are powerful tools for really making yourself believe you can be or do anything. They are good for the ego and utterly empowering. By focusing on one affirmation a day, saying it loud and clear to yourself in all moments of doubt, you’ll slowly start edging towards believing it is true. And once you believe it’s true, I guarantee you’ll have the rest of the World sold too.

Or, you’ll just look awkward. See above for a depiction of ‘awkward’.

So my response to the feasibility of faking it ‘til you make it? It’s feasible only if approached in the right way, and from within. Hence, don’t fake it because you think you should be a certain way or because you want to please other people. Only approach it if it’s something you want to achieve for the sake of your own personal growth, and only approach it if you’re willing to make yourself believe it before inflicting it upon anybody else. Why? Because otherwise, the short- and long-term effects will be excruciating.

Believe in yourself, manifest, self-assure… and you’ll be making it in no time with no faking necessary.

Walking into 2019

Every year I tend to make a long, unrealistic set of resolutions that never quite work out and lead to an inevitable sense of deep disappointment. Sound familiar? Or is it just me who is incapable?

This year, I initially made some resolutions on a Word document. But later that day I opened the lid of my laptop, saw it on the screen, and without thinking about it clicked ‘don’t save’. I realised that resolutions, personally, set myself up to fail and lead to unnecessary demotivation. Which is the total opposite of my aim! So, this year, I’m setting some general goals that are less demanding.

…Is there even a difference between a resolution and a goal?

I think there definitely is!

To me, a ‘resolution’ seems like something you have to be consistent with every single day. It feels like the kind of thing that if you don’t do just once, you may as well give up there and then because you’ve ruined the ongoing streak of it all. So, if I set a resolution to ‘eat healthier’, and then I had a day of junk, carbs and chocolate, I would see it as breaking the resolution and would probably just forget about it from that point. Whereas, a goal seems a bit more lenient. It feels like something you work towards gradually, with less strict guidelines surrounding it all. Some of my goals this year include: walking without purpose more often, to pick up a book instead of switching on the tv as often as possible, and to limit myself to only 3 cups of tea or coffee a day. These are pretty basic ones that I think would make a big difference to me mentally in the long run!

I also want to pay more attention to things going on around me. I so often find myself in a whirlwind, or glued to my phone screen, that I don’t really listen to what people are saying to me, or I don’t really see the small but wonderful things happening before my very eyes. Small things like finding my dog looking as cosy as this in the morning, or my niece stealing my dessert and eating it all to herself.

Both of these are tiny things that made me smile today that I wouldn’t have noticed if I didn’t take the time to actually be in the moment.

In terms of larger goals, I mainly want to pick up blogging again and take more time out for writing generally. It’s become something I associate myself with and ‘talk the talk’ but have recently been failing to ‘walk the walk’. Becoming a student blogger at University highlighted this for me; I started writing posts because I knew I had to, but in the meantime realised how much I had missed this kind of thing. The same goes for things like spoken word, poetry, and drawing- I don’t realise I miss them until I do them again… but if I never actually do it then they slowly slip away from me. Not this time!

…And what’s the first move?

The first move for me, begrudgingly, needs to be waking up earlier. I’ve grown to love a good lie-in recently (mainly because I stay up so late talking to flatmates or watching Netflix) but I want to stop wasting half of my day so often.

I’m also aware that I am a lot more productive and in a better headspace if I wake up earlier and start my day right. Afternoon naps are always an option after all! I’m not entirely sure how feasible this waking up early plan is, especially with a university lifestyle, but it doesn’t need to be early… it just needs to be a more normal time. I think 9am is prime.

I think that wraps up my first post of 2019, and hopefully I will be posting a lot more regularly again from here forth.

Happy New Year!

Ellie-Paige x