Fake It Till You Make It? Tested and Explained..

Is there some truth to “fake it till you make it”? In general, we refer it as in faking confidence, some character or a role in a position that we would like to get. Let’s first explore the process of “acting out” this concept, or rather the attitude required which is implied in this phrase. Of all the books and programs I have read and attended, to reach any visions (goals) you want, you will need to take the following steps:

A clear vision(s) or goals;
A plan to realize your visions/goals
A habit(s) of getting emotionally invested in your visions/goals;
Upon step 3, visualize as if you are already in possession of your goals/visions

Please note that the emotional involvement is a critical step for any real changes to take place in your life. When you are emotionally invested in something, you are actually sending messages to your subconsciousness. Only messages that are reached at this level, actions start to happen and changes start to take place. Further, at step 4 above, you are actually “faking” the role/character/confidence as if you already have it.

Start With Your Vision

When emotionally invested in your vision repetitively, this vision will be pressed into your subconscious mind and causes changes in behaviour.

Experts Opinions

To be more specific, I would use the course I took in Marisa Peer’s program. Marisa is a globally sought-after hypnotherapist. In her program, she would explain to us how the mind works in order to cause behavioral changes. She indicated that our mind responds to two things: 1. The picture that goes in our head; and 2. the words that go with the picture. So for any changes you want to make in your life, you will need to change either the picture or the words that go with picture or both. On that premise, if you want more confidence in your job or any occasion, you just need to put the “picture/vision” of the confident you and create the words that go with the picture, like “I am so great with what I do, I am born to do this. Again, get emotionally involved in your picture, believing that you are already in possession of the confidence. Do it daily even though you might not believe it at first. Nevertheless, with repetition, you would actually act as the person you are faking right now.

My Personal Experiment

Personally, I applied her method to my fear of driving and it DID work very well. I had never enjoyed driving; I only got my driver’s license at age 26. Even after that, I would drive for less than 3,000 KM per year. So when I realized that it was time for a change, I had a lot of fears. I first created a vision board of me sitting in a beautiful car of my choice. I cut out my picture and a nice car photo I’d found on-line. Then I wrote, I love driving so much, it gives me freedom and I have been driving all my life. Now, I knew that the statement was not true, however, I repeatedly telling myself how much I loved driving and I loved my car. For some reason, after two weeks of practice, I actually did not even think twice when I drove. It was as if I had been driving all my life. This was my act of faking it till you make it. I then started applying this attitude to plunging in the swimming pool and to many other things in my life that , in particular public speaking. Guess what, it has worked wonder for me.

Your Subconscious Mind Accepts Everything You Tell It

As curious as I am, I decided to get more information and investigate it further and here is what I have found. Our subconscious mind is where our habits and beliefs are stored. These habits and beliefs are installed and impregnated from our ancestors, culture and external environment. All before the age of reason -at around 7 years old. This collection of habits and beliefs form our paradigm (per Bob Proctor) which acts like our internal software. And you know what, this software governs 95% of our behavior, involuntarily. Most importantly, our subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between real and imaged events. So, when we ‘fake an attitude’ repetitively, with the vision in mind, this fake attitude mixed with emotions would cause to install a new belief or habit at the subconscious level. At that level, the ‘new attitude’ become part of the 95% of behavior that runs on autopilot for us. And we become the person/character we fake into. And this explains why it does work to ‘fake it till you make it’. Now does it work on everything? Does that mean that when you do not have what it takes, you can fake into succeeding it? Statistics show that more confident people have higher success rate than inconfident people. In that, I would pick “fake it till you make it” as my attitude anytime. I am sure that you would do the same.