Did you ever try to ACT the way you want to FEEL? If u want to feel energetic, act MORE energetic. FAKE IT, till you will surely FEEL IT.

Especially in the case of a depression where your symptoms are not a product of underlying existential issues that need attending but are instead due to genetics, faking it until you feel it might be the best thing you can do for yourself.

What it comes down to is that we can’t always separate cause and effect. Some things are circular. When you are depressed you find yourself with less energy and you find yourself less interested in the things that used to interest you. As a result you are much less likely to do the very things that could help lift you out of your depression and a very dangerous downward spiral is born.

You need to exercise to make the neurotransmitters that combat depression fire but the last thing you feel like doing is exercising when you are depressed. You feel like laying in bed.

One day, a friend came to see me because she felt socially awkward. She knew that her inability to make small talk was holding her back both personally and professionally. As a shy person, she hated going to networking events. But making connections was vital to her career.

I asked, "What do you usually do when you go to a networking event?"

She said, "I stand awkwardly off to the side and wait to see if anyone will come talk to me." I asked her, "What would you do differently if you felt confident?" and she said, "I'd initiate conversation and introduce myself to people."

Right then and there, she discovered the solution to her problem: If she wanted to feel more confident, she had to ACT more confident. That wasn't quite what she wanted to hear.

She'd hoped for a solution that would immediately make her feel more confident. But the key to becoming more comfortable in social situations is PRACTICE.

Her instinct was to wait until she felt more confident, but that confidence wasn't going to magically appear out of thin air—especially if she was standing around by herself. However, if she started talking to people like a confident person, she'd have an opportunity to experience successful social interactions, and each of these would boost her confidence.

Acting "As If"

Acting "as if" is a common prescription It's based on the idea that if you behave like the person you want to become, you'll become like this in reality

• If you want to feel happier, do what happy people do—SMILE.
• If you want to get more work done, act as if you are a productive person.
• If you want to have more friends, behave like a friendly person.
• If you want to improve your relationship, practice being a good partner.

Too often we hesitate to spring into action. Instead, we wait until everything feels  just right or until we think we're ready. But research shows that changing your behavior  first can change the way you think and feel.

Be Careful and Don't Fall in this mistake!!

Faking it until you make it only works when you correctly identify something within yourself that's holding you back.

Behaving like the person you want to become is about changing the way you feel and the way you think.If your motives are to prove your worth to other people, however, your efforts won't be successful, and research shows that this approach actually backfires.

How to "Fake It" the Right Way

Acting "as if" is about changing your behavior first and trusting the feelings will follow. As long as your motivation is in the right place, faking it until you make it can effectively make your goals become reality. Just make sure you're interested in changing yourself on the inside, not simply trying to change other people's perceptions of you.

Do you ever feel like you don't quite deserve your success or aren't fully qualified to do what you do? That common feeling is what psychologists call the "impostor syndrome," a phenomenon where successful people feel like frauds waiting for someone to realize that they're unfit for their leadership roles.

That fear is stressful, and often leads people to hold back instead of pushing for bigger clients or more challenging opportunities.

Most of the people who feel like impostors are actually exceptionally capable. It's their self-image that's off. "Feeling like an impostor is different than being an impostor," "Feelings aren’t facts".

To beat the impostor syndrome and trust your success, see " Faking it " as a skill

We all have moments when we need to fake confidence or sell an idea that was thrown together at the last minute. In those moments, impostors tend to focus on thoughts like, "that was all an act," which leaves them feeling fraudulent.

But knowing how to appear confident is a valuable asset in any job.

"It's a skill to be able to walk in and act like you know what you’re doing even if you don't,"

Allowing yourself to build and applaud that skill -- without practicing any intentional harm or deceit -- will help you feel credible even when you’re out of your comfort zone.

To successfully fake it till you make it, you must first know what you feel, why you’re feeling it, and what you’d like to do about it. So let’s start there.

1- What’s the inconvenient feeling/situation you’re grappling with? 

Is it internal or interpersonal?

Is it something that’s come up recently or a long term issue?

How does your body feel? What words would you use to describe your feelings?

In what ways does this prevent you from living your life as wholly or efficiently as you’d like to?

If you feel overwhelmed just thinking about it, try jotting these questions down and answering each with a simple sentence. It might seem silly, but writing your feelings down on the page makes them tangible and better organized.

2- Now assess. Ask yourself if this situation truly requires you to fake it till you make it. 

It would be great if we lived in a world where everyone got to be their authentic selves 100% of the time, but for most people, that just isn’t a practical reality. You might need to fake it so you can literally make it.

When I come up against an obstacle and determine that I do have to fake it to make it, I try to create bookends of validation around the faking. 

For instance, If I often have meetings scheduled far in advance — things I can’t really cancel if I have a depression attack the morning of. It doesn’t help that these meetings sometimes cause said depression attack. What I can do, though, is take a long hot shower before you make it for these meetings . I can promise myself that for 15 minutes, I can totally go to pieces. I can cry and wail, or I can sit on the floor of the shower in stunned silence — whatever I am feeling, I get to do it. And then I wash it down the drain. I get dressed, and I head for the meeting, and you best believe I put on my very best skills and rum my meetings very effectively .

When I finish the meeting, I also finish the “faking.” Because I have made it.

That’s the key: being able to turn the faking off and on as it is useful to you — and no more than that.

Any more than that, and it’s easy to fall into a pattern of faking things just to make people happy or more comfortable. No one’s comfort is more important than your wellbeing. It's called "fake it  till you make it" for a reason.

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ABOUT MARWA ABD EL AZIZ

Marwa is a pioneer and expert in developing projects to build revenue, profits and corporate visibility with extensive experience in all facets of projects starting with site identification, developing and overseeing the implementation of the feasibility plans for projects; actively participating in the various financial analysis, acquisition, master planning, design review and tendering.

She is in the UAE Property Development industry Since 2001 during which she has coordinated all administrative activities pertaining to construction projects with an overall budget exceeding 5 billion.

Marwa holds an Architectural Engineering degree, PMP and Master in Project Management from the American Academy U.S.A.

More info: https://pdcconsult.com

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