Don’t know about you, but the saying “fake it till you make it” doesn’t sit well with me.
I know, I know, it’s just a saying but what do you think of when I say the word “fake”?
Yeah, same here, it’s not a positive thought that springs to mind.
If we look at the dictionary definition it states: not genuine, imitation or counterfeit.
Now I sure do not want to associate myself too closely to those sentiments.
And I get what the saying is trying to accomplish, imagine yourself to be what you want to be until you are it. That to me sits a whole let better than “fake it…”
As we know now that the power of our imagination is so crucial for us to be able to create a movement towards the person or outcomes that we want.
But I do not consider someone who is on their journey with aspirations of being beyond where they are to be fake. They are just moving in a direction towards their desired intention.
Or I prefer to look at it is, we are just in training.
Think of it like this.
Up and coming athletes who have a dream of achieving the heights of their sports and have the dedication (an essential element) and practice and train (the natural steps) at a high level would be most likely implementing similar training to the elite. And would also spend hours upon hours dreaming and imagining themselves at that level.
Faking it? No, just in training.
In fact many Olympians (probably most) even use imagery/visualisation as a part of their mental training. Picturing how they want the race/event to unfold. Putting themselves in high stress situations within their minds eye so that when they encounter these events they feel a sense of comfort that they have “been there before”.
The twists, the turns and with achieving the end result they are after. How does it smell, what’s the sounds, what’s the vision and how you feel. They tune into it as if it were actually happening.
Mental rehearsal.
Training.
And I see those of us without the remarkable ability of our elite brothers and sisters amongst us as the same.
We can mentally rehearse what we want our life to be.
And guess what, we’re doing these either way. Either consciously towards what we want or unconsciously towards what we are currently getting or even what we don’t want.
So we may as well start visualising and living our lives as if we were in training for the life of our dreams.
Expect it to happen, carry that feeling with you just as if you were an athlete in training for your 1st grade debut.
Visualise your outcomes as if you were in amongst it right now.
And carry with you that constant excited expectation that all will unfold.
Just like someone cutting a big tree, the goal is to have the tree no longer vertical, they start to cut it and at every moment they can only be wherever they are, yet there is an inbuilt expectation, a knowing that if they keep sawing, the tree will come down, provided they continually take the right action required at that step.
This is like our lives.
We should be constantly taking the steps forward, whatever they may be towards our desires.
We are expecting the outcome as that is the direction we are moving to. After all as per the cutting of the tree little old story, its what will happen naturally.
How long will it take?
Not our concern, we just stay focused on the next step and visualise ourselves when we can having achieved the outcome, and carry that energy ever forward onto the next step.
After all what else can we do. Ah yeah, true, we can give up or go into self doubt, but guess what time’s going to pass anyway so we may as well stay attuned to our vision and surrender to the steps and process.
So no need to “fake it until you make it” as in a way we have it already anyway.
CRITICAL, now one super important thing is to be in the moment when we are taking action as sometimes life may have an even better plan for us than what we imagined. And when we are truly present (not stuck in past or future thought patterns) we seem to be more open to synchronicity, those unforeseen events that move us forward. A random meeting, a chat with a stranger that opens doors to exactly what we needed next!
Also, do not be attached to the outcomes, just take action and let the rest sort itself out. As life does throw curveballs that can be blessings in disguise, so non attachment is also super important. We do not define ourselves by events, stay open, take action and love the action.
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