“Fake it ‘til you make it.”

I heard this mantra from a friend a few years ago, and it has changed my life.

The first time I heard it, I thought it sounded a bit… strange. I didn’t really understand it, nor did I see how faking anything could help someone. It didn’t really make sense to me until I tried.

I have never been the most confident person.

Actually… that’s putting it lightly. For most of my life I have been a very, very insecure person. I like to think that I hid it rather well, but at many periods of my life, my insecurities and self-doubts and anxious tendencies where the only voices in my mind and they commanded everything I did.

One day, someone (a person that I thought in this moment must have been rather foolish to be convinced by my obvious facade) told me, “You seem so confident. I envy that.”

I was amazed and baffled. I think that I replied, “Don’t envy me, I’m totally faking it.”

To which they said, “Hey, that’s not too far off from making it, yknow?”

I could feel the animated light bulb appear above my head.

Silly me. I didn’t realize that this silly mantra someone told me was exactly what I had been doing this whole time. I wondered what would happen if I put conscious effort into faking it.

I decided I would try to catch myself when I had a self-deprecating thought, and instead, tell myself the opposite.

If I thought, “My hair is a mess,” I would say to myself, “My hair looks… edge-y.”

If someone said to me, “You look nice today!”

Instead of my usual response of, “Oh gosh, no I don’t,” I tried out, “I know! Thanks for appreciating it.”

If someone said, “Wow, how did you manage to accomplish all that?”

Instead of, “Oh... It’s not impressive.”

...I tried to train myself to say, “BECAUSE I’M AWESOME.”

It got easier. It started to become habit. I learned to respond to these thoughts in a self-loving manner... even when I didn’t necessarily believe what I said.

And you know what happened??? I started to believe it!!!

The more I told myself, “I look great today, and I’m awesome.” the more I started to think to myself, “I actually look great today, and I’m actually really awesome!!!”

I tried to take it further by really confronting the things I didn’t like. I stopped wearing makeup for a bit, styled my hair differently, and dressed a bit differently. I looked at all these things that I used to worry so much about; all the things I tried to change daily because I thought I was flawed, and decided that I would like them (or at least tell myself and others that I did). I said to myself, “The circles under my eyes make me unique,” and “My hair looks good without being burned by a flatiron,” and “I don’t have to hide my thighs, for they are squishy and wonderful.”

When I challenged myself to go out with a sense of self-acceptance, even if it was feigned, flaunting the things that I used to invest so much time into hiding made me begin to truly like myself. “Flaws” included.

I’m not saying that “faking it” is the end of the game, but it sure has helped me feel like I’ve gained a lot of points. The mantra is still “Fake it ‘til you make it.” It isn’t about lying to yourself or giving yourself excuses. It’s a really appropriate tool for helping yourself past the things that make you get in your own way. If you think you can’t, but you tell yourself, “I can,” it’s much more likely that you will.

I still have my bad days, and I still hear that voice that likes to put me down whispering in my ear. I’m definitely still working on liking a lot of things about myself. But seriously, there is something behind this idea. It’s a simple concept, and for me, it’s working.

So if you hear that voice in your head telling you that you aren’t enough, or that you’re flawed, give yourself a good look in the mirror and tell yourself the exact opposite. If you fake it enough, you will start to believe it. You owe it to yourself to build yourself up and get out of your own way.