Neuroscientists have discovered that your thoughts create your reality. This is easy to understand when you realize that you created your current life based on what you believed about yourself and the world.
Yes, you can adopt an intention before you master it
Your intention drives your life, which means you have always been acting as if. The power of faking it until you make is that you assume that you already have what it is you want. You follow this up by taking the actions of a person who has already achieved what it is they set out to do.
The problem for most of us with “fake it until you make it” is that we assume this is something strange that we must do to change our lives, never realizing we are already doing this with our thoughts. The reality we have created has been unconsciously based on the negative thoughts and internal language we use about ourselves. Let’s use examples.
“I will never get selected for that promotion, there are many candidates better than me.”
By using this language, you are faking your failure until you finally achieve it. By believing others are better than you for the promotion, you will act as you project, inferior to others, and create the reality you believe. Even though you already know that people can’t achieve anything if they are convinced they are not good enough to do so, you often sabotage your efforts in exactly this way.
Let’s try another one,
“I am too old, ugly, overweight, (fill in the blank), to attract a romantic partner.”
In this scenario, you are faking a future of being alone and you will conspire to bring this about by projecting your negative self-beliefs. Again, it is impossible to be attractive to anyone if you deem you are not, yet I see people doing this to themselves all the time.
This was a tough for me because, right after my divorce, I believed I was too old to attract a romantic partner. Fortunately, I am becoming better at recognizing these negative beliefs when they come up and I can detach from them. I replace them with the knowledge I am a beautiful man in body, mind and spirit and that any woman would be fortunate to have as a partner. This has produced much better results for me than my old alternative. Man or woman, you too are special and worthy of love.
To get the life you want, you must train differently
The first steps to successfully “fake it until you make it” is to change your internal language. Changing these thoughts will not come easily if you are used to putting yourself down, but you can change it with training.
This is not farfetched, any new talent you want to develop takes practice. If you want to play the piano, you can learn on your own or take lessons. If you want to become more fit, you exercise or get help from a trainer. The point is, you work on it.
You can choose what you want to fake, but you will not “make it” if you don’t learn to notice your negative thoughts and language. It is in doing so that you can stop the self-sabotage because you possess the power to choose more constructive thoughts.
Practice changing your negative thoughts every day and it will become the habit that creates your best life. Many can do this on their own, but others, like me, need external help. Don’t be embarrassed to seek a coach or counselor to help you.
Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy on Unspla
