Why 'faking it till you make it' isn't really a bad thing!
I'm not sure about you, but over the years I've heard countless opinions on whether you should "Fake it till you make it".
And... most people are very much on one side or the other.
Either "Faking it till you make it" is garbage, inauthentic, toxic etc etc.
or
"Faking it till you make it" is life changing, empowering, the key to growth etc etc.
I'm actually not for or against it. I think it's kind of like the question "Do you like potato?" It's so broad and it depends on so much. Like, hot chips? YEAH! Mash potato? Heck no. Exact same ingredient... different way of using it and it ends with a different result.
Same with faking it till you make it.
Like everything, (including potatoes)... it depends on how you use it. It depends on the individual and their skills, what you take from it and how you apply it to your own circumstances and goals (and so much more!)
One way I've seen 'faking it till you make it' play a SUPER powerful role in business owners lives is when they have imposter syndrome, or negative beliefs that are literally stopping them from growing.
Here's an example to show you what I mean...
I remember a client telling me that they couldn't ever sell their products. They felt sick at even the thought of talking about what they offered. They truly believed that selling was gross and couldn't bring themselves to do it. And anytime they did, they felt awful, guilty and uncomfortable.
We did a couple of things in this specific chat to try and help that. Because if you don't sell what you have to offer, it's kind of like if you had a retail store and you never opened the doors. You wouldn't sell anything!
I got her to observe other people around her selling, and people who she bought from's marketing efforts, and asked if she was uncomfortable buying from them. Did she feel like THEY were gross and dodgy when they were selling their products or services. She reported back saying no, not at all. We started to address those feelings and change those beliefs by realising that selling is amazing, and she wouldn't own or have even found me to work with if I wasn't selling or the people who's products she owns weren't selling. We also talked about a lot of other things like how selling is actually really valuable not just for you as a business owner, but for those who you sell to! Because like I said earlier, if I never 'sold' or marketed my services or business... she may never have found me and never got this help! So I helped her by selling to her! It was a very positive thing.
But more related to this conversation about 'faking it till you make it', I asked her "What if you DIDN'T think selling wasn't gross? Could we try faking it for a while? Like, pretend you loved selling?" It sounded so weird to say at the time. She had to almost get in a new character and manually change the way she thought when she was selling by pretending or faking that she enjoyed it.
It took a little time to change the habits of dreading it but want to know what ended up happening?
When she started faking that she enjoyed selling, she started to get a really positive response from her followers. She started to make quite a lot more sales. She started to grow her following bit by bit as the selling got her more visibility online, more reshares, more website visitors. She got repeat customers coming back! She got to experience what selling COULD be like without the fears attached... all because she was faking it.
And by the end, she didn't need to fake it anymore because she had proven to herself that selling actually wasn't gross, it wasn't even anywhere near as difficult as she thought, in fact, after she bought my ebook 'sell without sounding salesy', she was posting so much more often, in so many different ways, and was comfortable selling every day because it wasn't the hard sell 'BUY THIS NOW' car salesman kind of deal for every single post.
By our next call, she wasn't faking it anymore.
She actually enjoys selling now because that pressure and false understanding and beliefs about what selling was is totally gone, and she continues to sell in a very non-gross way and has grown her business so much because of it.
Now whenever she has a belief that needs a bit of work, she fakes that it's not true (some things are more difficult than others) and I think it's a really really cool way to challenge the things in your world that you want to overcome.
Faking it till you make it can be so powerful when used in situations like this where we struggle to get ourselves out of our own way.
I hope this idea might help you too!