I’ve never liked the phrase, “fake it till you make it.” It just seems like bad advice. I don’t know anyone who wants to be around fake people. It’s okay if you can’t do something, but don’t lie about it and try to fake like you know what you’re doing. That just seems crazy, right?
I’ve realized, however, that I may have been a little harsh in my judgments. I’ve discovered that sometimes faking it is the only way you’ll actually ever make it. I’ll explain.
Years ago, after a string of traumas left me very insecure; I knew I needed to learn how to truly love myself. I turned to self-help books for guidance. Several books emphasized the importance of telling myself powerful affirmations like, “I am lovable.”
I’d say various affirmations over and over in my head, but each repetition would be echoed by the more honest counterpart, “I love myself. No, ya don’t. I love myself. No, you really don’t.”
I couldn’t fake the way I felt. I didn’t feel lovable.
We can’t fake a state of being. Every state of being has a different feel to it, a different energy with a specific vibrational frequency. We can’t fool energy. We’re either in love, or we’re not. We’re either in a state of happiness or we’re not. If we want to change states we have to do something differently. We can become happy by looking around and seeing things to be happy about, but we can’t feel happiness if we’re unhappy.
There was no way I could trick my mind into making me feel lovable. Affirmations were not my answer to developing self-love.
Eventually I started to think about what it would look like if I actually did love myself more. What would I do? What actions would I take?
I had a whole list of things I’d do differently. I’d meditate more consistently, I’d eat healthier foods, drink more water, exercise more regularly, have better boundaries and stop making choices out of guilt, self-doubt or shame.
Then I thought, what if I just started acting like I loved myself? What would change if I started doing those things right now?
We often tell ourselves we’ll take better care of ourselves tomorrow or after we have this figured out or that under control. We imagine it will be so much easier later when we have “more” time, energy, or money.
We keep doing things we think we need to do, should do or feel obligated to do out of love and respect for others while we neglect ourselves. Then we beat ourselves up, and feel unlovable, for being overweight, having bags under our eyes and looking and feeling drained all of the time.
But that magical “tomorrow” where all the stars align, never seems to come.
When we put off doing things that honor and nurture ourselves, something always comes up to keep us in that pattern.
The only way to break the cycle is to start doing things differently.
I started to truly expand my ability to love and respect myself when I started doing things that I deemed lovable and respectable.
This is where fake it till you make it is actually a good thing.
If you don’t love yourself enough to eat good food, fake it. Pretend you do. Start acting like you do and eat healthy foods.
Start acting in loving and respectful ways and your thoughts will follow suit. Loving yourself will be a natural byproduct of the loving actions you take. When you start eating better, you’ll start feeling better, sleeping better and looking better. Those results will start to make you think differently about yourself. Eventually you’ll actually start to feel lovable. You’ll start to feel worthy of your love, respect and praise.
So go ahead, fake it till you make it.
xoox
