Pretend You're Good At It

We've all heard the saying, "Fake it 'til you make it." It sounds catchy, but it actually sucks as a life philosophy. Ask me how I know. I know because I have tried many times throughout my life to make it my life philosophy, and have always been disappointed by it. First of all, it starts with a word that immediately gets my hackles up. I can't stand fake. I yearn for real and authentic, and fake things and people just leave me feeling distrustful and annoyed. But my other problem with this way of living is the "make it" part. How do you know when you've "made it?" And what is "it" anyway? It feels like a pretty hollow end goal. In my experience, there are many times when you actually just keep faking it indefinitely because there's really no stopping point once you start faking life. Or you give up trying to "make it" because you grow weary of the faking it.

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook an alternative life philosophy: "Face it 'til you make it." To me, this is better because instead of faking feelings you don't feel, you can face the ones you do feel and become master of them. 

But the philosophy I'm enjoying even more right now is "Pretend you're good at it," which was a piece of advice given to journalist and author Jenny Lawson after she published her first book and literally ran sick with anxiety from the studio while recording the audio version. She said she felt there was no way she could do this thing that was in front of her and she felt paralyzed with fear and anxiety. She texted a friend from the bathroom and conveyed her panic, and "Pretend you're good at it" was the reply. This piece of advice gave her the strength to go back in the studio and finish the recording with confidence. She says she still often writes that message on her arm when she has to do a task she doesn't like or isn't excited about or one that gives her anxiety. She shared this story in her second book, Furiously Happy, which I recently listened to and highly recommend if you want to laugh out loud--sometimes at wildly inappropriate things--while gaining a greater understanding of and appreciation for depression and anxiety.

Pretending and faking aren't really all that different in practice, I guess, but the connotations are vastly different in my opinion. Whereas faking feels charged with negative energy from the outset, pretending feels fun and whimsical, like something you did as a child--not to be devious but just because your mind was open to a wider variety of possibilities. Also, the end seems more defined, so it doesn't demand you accomplish some nebulous goal. And the time frame seems limited to the present instead of stretching out into the abyss of forever. This philosophy asks you to pretend just for this moment that you are good at just this one thing in front of you that you are struggling with by asking some relatively simple questions. How would a person who is good at this approach it? What would a person who was good at this say or do or think or feel? To me, it seems to take a lot of pressure off and makes facing the challenges of life seem more approachable. 

I spend a significant amount of time at work training new baristas. And though many people don't realize it, it is a pretty demanding job that requires a variety of physical and mental skills in order to be done successfully. All new baristas feel overwhelmed at first and usually struggle with some aspects of the many roles. A girl I recently trained was struggling on our drive-thru training day to make small talk with customers at the drive-thru window. She admitted to me that she is a little shy and doesn't feel comfortable talking to strangers. With Ms. Lawson's book top of mind, I assured her she didn't have to be good at it, but I wondered if she could just pretend she was good at it for a bit while we completed our training. I could see in her perfectionist eyes that she was relieved to not have to be good at it and that pretending she was might not be so bad. She said she would give it a try, and then she stepped up to the window and began chatting with the customer about the weather or some other innocuous topic. A day or two later, I heard from the store manager that she had worked at the window on a subsequent shift and had done a wonderful job connecting with customers. I'm sure she didn't suddenly find an interest in small talk. But I think she must have been able to find a way to pretend she was good at it.

We all struggle with different things from time to time. And it's absolutely okay to struggle. We don't have to be good at everything we try. But maybe we could pretend it be good at those things just long enough to help us get through them.