Google, “How do I be confident?” and you’ll see many familiar answers:
“Stand like a superhero with your hands on your hips…” [1]
“Maintain eye contact…”
“Smile…”
Some of these recommendations work (especially those grounded in science). Others, not so much.
There’s one answer, though, that irks me more than any other:
“Fake it ’til you make it.”
Here’s why…
“You Just Need to Fake It ’Til You Make It”
When I was 19, I was painfully shy.
I couldn’t look anyone in the eye. I couldn’t make friends. I couldn’t even ask a stranger for the time.
Seriously.
It’s no surprise, then, that I gravitated toward personal development.
I read every book I could find on self-confidence, body language, self-esteem, conversation…you name it, I probably read it.
The advice was always the same:
“Replace self-talk was affirmations…”
“Visualize your outcome…”
“Fake it ’til you make it…”
And while most of the advice I applied was helpful—I made a lot of progress and achieved the goals I had—something still wasn’t right.
The truth is…
While I might have appeared confident, I didn’t feel confident.
Honestly?
I was terrified.
Worse, I was using techniques and principles to hide the fact, rather than addressing why I afraid in the first place.
I was lying to myself—pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
I was a fake.
And people began to notice…
Why Fake It ’Til You Make It Is Bad Advice
Imagine making a new friend or going on a date or interviewing for a job.
Wouldn’t you rather the person be themselves—flaws and all—than pretend to be someone they’re not?
This is why fake it ’til you make it doesn’t work:
It masks who you really are—your true authentic self.
Sure, you might get some results in the beginning, but this kind of emotional labor takes it toll in the long-term (especially when somebody calls you on it).
When I was faking it, I might have been “making it”—but I was cheating myself to get there.
I would ask girls out on dates, for example, and they would reply, “Are you always so forward?” or worse, “You do this a lot, don’t you”
I was too confident. And it was affecting my ability to genuinely connect with people.
So if you shouldn’t fake it ’til you make it, what should you do instead?
Embrace vulnerability.
The Power of Vulnerability
In her wonderful TED Talk, Brene Brown says:
In order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen, really seen. [2]
When we fake confidence, we become invisible. We don’t reveal our true, authentic selves. We numb emotion, and because we can’t selectively numb, we numb everything—including our ability to be vulnerable.
If you’re hiding right now, I invite you to show up and let yourself be seen. When you embrace vulnerability, you lean into fear, overcome Resistance and accept your insecurities. Most important, you connect with others more easily. Why? It invites others to be authentic, too.
Forget fake it ’til you make it. I say…take it until you make it. [3]
Take the failure (or rather, feedback)…
Take the rejection…
Take the “ass-kicking” (as Brown calls it)…
…and remind yourself that it’s moving you closer to where you want to be.
What is your experience with fake it ’til you make it? Has it worked for you? Leave a comment below.
Read Next
- Mindy Kaling on How to Boost Self-Confidence
Sources
[1] Cuddy, A. (2012, June). Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are [Video file].
[2] Brené Brown. (2010, June). The Power of Vulnerability [Video file].
[3] “Take it ’til you make it” is an adaptation of Louis Zamperini’s advice, “If you can take it, you can make it.” To get more wisdom from Louis’ book, Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In, read my book summary.
I don’t think the phrase “fake it till you make it” was coined in effort to numb ourselves and/or hide from anything. In my mind, it speaks to just sucking it up and doing something uncomfortable, like walking into a business mixer not knowing anyone in the room. If you walk in as a shy, vulnerable rookie, you’ll be seen as exactly that. If you walk in with a bit of swagger like you just closed a nice deal, whether you did or not, again you’ll be perceived as such and remembered that way. Unless you’ve been “faking it” for 10 years, seems like a harmless way to motivate people to do something they’d typically shy away from. It’s all about perception and setting the right tone. Some of that can very well be faked.
Valid points D. I think the issue is the degree to which one interprets “fake”. When misinterpreted it can bridge the gap between confidence and arrogance.
The advice you communicate in your article is wonderful.
It has indeed been easier for me to connect with people when accepting my vulnerability instead of fighting against it by faking my behaviors.
Often times, we fake our behaviors by copying the ones that we consider to be confident-looking while, in reality, they do not match our way of being.
Therefore, I think the danger behind this faking technique is to end up adopting a fake self.
Instead, by genuinely accepting our true self, and its vulnerability that we all feel at times, it can instantly makes us calmer.
Working on myself helped me to grow this inner calm that is now present with me in previously stressful social situations.
Knowing that our feelings affect our thoughts, and that our thoughts affect our feelings, I think that change of behavior lies in the ability to identify, reflect and change our thought patterns in order to influence our feelings.
I found this way of doing much more effective than faking my behavior in social situations where I had all these anxious thoughts, and where I was trying to look confident anyway.
Acting this way was just a form of internal fighting. I was making contortions to fit the image of the nice and cool guy I built up in my head.
As a result, it just made me look arrogant, and lead me to commit mistakes that resulted in increasing my anxiety. All the opposite of what I was looking for.
Instead, identifying and reflecting on my thoughts, sometimes irrational, by writing them down helped me to replace my old thinking patterns, which, in turn, positively affected my behaviors.
I am now behaving differently in a way that feels good and right for me.
Finally, I think it is important to also acknowledge that there will always be at least one person that will be judgmental no matter how nice or cool or diplomatic etc a person is.
However, by working on ourselves, I strongly believe that it becomes possible to use our internal resources in order to choose to not be negatively affected by these judgements.
Fantastic insights Etienne. Thanks for sharing.