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There are successful people who give the advice of ‘faking it until you make it’ when it pertains to achieving success. The notion behind this thought is that faking your level of confidence in any particular venture that you embark on will translate into actual skill once you get in the door. By faking it, you will let go of the mental barriers people often put up for themselves when they are beginners in a certain domain. Anxiety can cripple, and a lack of confidence can paralyze you in doing what needs to be done on your path towards success.
You may have heard this advice and wondered if it really works. Can you honestly fake it, make it, and not get exposed for faking it? This article aims to provide some insight on how to be successful in your task of faking it until you make it.
The Fear of Your Falsehood Being Exposed
The fear of being exposed for faking your skills in any domain is a direct correlate with the success of your endeavor to do so. Put more simply, the more you fear being exposed, the higher your chance of being successful in faking it until you make it. By faking it until you make it, you are investing in your ability to learn the skills that you needed to have in the first place. This puts a lot of pressure on you, so you should be able to execute under pressure. The fear of being exposed is thereby mixed with the pressure that you put on yourself, as well as the various time constraints at play.
Akin to paying with credit, you will need to earn the skills that you faked and traded for success. There are no two ways about it. If you feel like you can get away from doing so by utilizing deceptive methods, you will live in fear. Your performance within your chosen domain will suffer, and you will not be able to grow further. Thriving on a continuous streak of ‘fake’ skills becomes more difficult with each iteration that you do not pay back. Once you fake being skilled in order to further your success, the step that comes next is actually developing those skills before faking any more.
The skill you faked does not just get added to your skill set. This is the most important aspect of faking it until you make it. Always be able to pay back your debts, and pay them back as fast as you can manage.
By faking it until you make it, be sure that you are able to learn the skills you faked quickly and while being under pressure. If you do this, you will decrease your chances of becoming exposed for being a fake.
Get Ready for Long Nights and Stressful Days
It may now be obvious that you are not off the hook by merely faking it. The ‘making it’ part does not simply force itself into fruition. It is solely your own responsibility to make it once you fake it. The act of faking a skill merely gets you in the door. Get ready to be stressed and placed under pressure. By faking it, you place an inordinate amount of pressure on yourself and should be ready to handle what you’ve gotten yourself into.
There is no turning back once you fake it, it is a decision that you make knowing the road back will be blocked off. You now have two options: continue driving down the road you’ve chosen and learn the skills that you faked, or get exposed and driven off the cliff. Understand that this will be a stressful and scary time. You feel alone in what you aim to do, and not a lot of people around you will relate to the fear that you live with.
It will be difficult, your nights will be long, and your days will be stressful. These are the prices you’re going to have to pay for taking the shortcut on your path towards success, so be ready to pay them. The good news is that achieving success in this regard is possible to say the least. If you are confident in your ability to learn enough to not get exposed for faking it, you should take this option every time you have a chance.
The challenge begins after your act of faking it goes over well, so don’t rest one bit once you’re in the door. Now you should perform. Develop a strict mentality when it comes to faking it until you make it. Get in the door and have a rock-hard confidence in being able to learn the skills needed to ensure success. Thrive under the pressure you’ve placed yourself under, and know that it will make you better once you’ve passed the test.