Fake It till You Make It

In my mind fake it till you make it is a fallacy. I am asked frequently about this concept and here’s the first way I respond: every situation has a positive and a negative. You can choose to focus on either. Often we choose (albeit unconsciously) to focus on the negative. Why? To reinforce that we suck and are not good enough.

You can choose to focus on the positives and use those to your advantage. Those positives are as much reality as the negatives which means you are not faking it. I’ve said this many times but its worth saying again, you do not have to think or say anything that’s not true but you can reframe so what you think and say is more neutral-positive. Thinking about the more negative elements do what besides leading to negative outcomes? Yeah, sure you want to learn from mistakes but ruminating about them and beating yourself up about them does what good? Maybe that’s the crux of the problem: how to use mistakes as a source of motivation and growth versus guilt and regret.The other option is exactly what I see in clients: any tiny mistake leads to the next until you are unraveling. Next time something doesn’t go your way stop and think about how you can use that information as a source of motivation and growth versus a source of bearing yourself up.

Here’s one other fact to consider in this conversation (your conversation with yourself): I guarantee negatives or mistakes are small in comparison to the whole. I can clearly remember this conversation as the defining moment in my relationship with one of my performers. We were having the above conversation and I said in a 5 minute routine how many minutes are the mistakes? She said 30 seconds. I said, huh, you are beating yourself up and unable to enjoy your performances for 30 seconds out of 5 minutes? It sounds like there’s 4 1/2 minutes of other, potentially great stuff…why are you focusing on and allowing 30 seconds control your performance? She got it!

“This has become my favorite quote: If you are not failing regularly you are living so far below your potential that you are failing anyway.”

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Have a great week!

Dr. Michelle

Photo credit: sufined.deviantart.com