“Almost everyone believes that they are ugly. Ask your grandmother. Your child. Your best friend. Most models. Most actors. Maybe even you. You will never be objective about your appearance. You’re the worst judge of your appearance. Trust me. You look fine. The camera loves you. Now take a picture.”
If there’s one thing I can guarantee you it’s this – Everyone has at one point or the other battled with self-confidence issues. The problem is an issue such as this snowballs and can affect other aspects of your life – your academics, your career, your social life…
How do we deal with this? You can read all the self-help books in the world but until you actually practice what they say, it remains a theoretical concept. The temporary solution? Fake it until you make it.
Wake up in the morning and wear your best clothes, look in the mirror and pronounce yourself beautiful. Speak like you know exactly what you are talking about, loudly and eloquently. Compliment yourself, and receive compliments with all your heart. Don’t allow doubt to consume you. Believe it, or maybe just fake this belief until you actually do.
The idea behind this adage is that pretending to think, feel, or act a certain way will cause you to actually think, feel, or act that way.
You have to be careful, however, not to lose yourself in the process. You must retain your authenticity even as you fake it. To do this, you need to understand yourself better. What are your core values? What principles do you swear by? Answering these questions will help you to retain the core of your being even as you ‘fake it till you make it.’
Faking it till you make it pushes you to do things scared because truth is told, you will never be ready to go after some wild dreams. You just need to assume that you’re already confident and then go after these dreams despite the fear.
Is there proof that faking it till you make it actually works? Yes! The study was done among two groups of speed daters. One group was told to treat their partner “as if” they were already romantically involved with them, even though they’d just met. The other group was told to act like they typically would on a first date (i.e. more reserved). At the end of the study, the “faking it” group felt more attached to their partners and expressed more interest in seeing them again.
You can fake a smile to become happier. After analyzing 138 studies, researchers have strong evidence to show that smiling can make you happy to a small degree. The main mechanism for this is facial feedback – our facial muscles influence our emotional state just as our emotional state influences our muscles to create a smile or a frown.
Don’t wait to adopt individual principles to achieve self-confidence. Start today, now even. Surprise yourself by the radical change in the way you view yourself and in the way you do things. You will find, in doing so, that faking it till you make it is not just a theory, it works. Try it yourself.
Here are 5 Tips To Help You Boost Your Self Confidence
Also, check out 5 Tips For Self-Esteem That Lasts Long-Term
