Confidence For the Rest of Us — 4 Much Needed Alternatives to ‘Fake It Til You Make It’

4 Much More Attainable Ways to Make it (Other than Faking It)

Photo by George Bohunicky on Unsplash

I hate to break it to whoever invented “fake it til you make it,” but for the most part, it sucks.

People do not like being lied to.

Yes, stories are great. Embellishments are fun.

But you know what’s super sexy?

Honesty. And vulnerability. And relatability.

All these things are massively undermined when someone straight-up lies about whether they’re up to the task.

And that’s just the present tense.

That’s not even taking into consideration what exactly that person thinks they’ll do when they’ve quote-unquote made it.

Suddenly stop faking it? Let the world see them for reals?

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.

It’s a terrifying prospect to get so far through life, perhaps even all the way to that elusive massive success, to then have to reveal yourself as some kind of areshole that was masquerading as… well, something more palatable. Something competent (when you weren’t).

You’d have a pretty nasty case of imposter syndrome, is my guess.

The irony is that imposter syndrome is a known psychological condition where people doubt their own accomplishments and fear being exposed as a fraud.

The whole idea of ‘faking it’ implies not so much imposter syndrome, but actually being an imposter.

People who fake it until they make it have every reason to feel like a fraud.

And I’m just not down with that.

Revealing yourself to be an imposter is not fun. Living life as an imposter is not fun.

And surely in 2019, there’s no need for this way of doing things.

Aside from the fact there’s Google. There’s Alexa. And Siri. There’s all the information, tutorials, courses, blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, listicles, resources, training, books — basically everything you could possibly need — at your fingertips no less — to not have to…