As a coach you may have been give the advice to “fake it ‘til you make it.” Perhaps you have even given that advice for yourself. I know I remember having a conversation when I was starting out as a trainer and a coach where an experienced colleague gave me that advice.
The plus side of faking it ‘til you make it is that it can be the extra something needed to nudge someone into doing something they were not previously doing. Even if they are pretending to be something/someone they don’t think they are in order for that to happen.
A side effect is that the person doing the “faking” often has a nagging feeling that they are about to be discovered as a fraud at any minute. Considering that they are approaching this by pretending to be someone else it’s understandable that is the response that they are having.
It’s not unusual for someone to have gone past the point of having to fake it as they developed their own approach a long time ago. However, they haven’t actually realised this and adjusted their own perception of themselves. So they still feel like they are a fake.
As always as you read this I encourage you to listen to your own wisdom. If you read this and find that what I am talking about works for you, and you are quite happy doing it, then keep using what works for you!
I am sharing this as I wanted to point out that “faking to you make it” is not the only way of becoming comfortable with any “role”, task or activity. Below I’ll share just 3 different approaches you may consider using.
For instance, you could just keep doing regular small steps to move yourself forward until you find that one day you find it is all really comfortable.
A different way is to be honest with yourself – and others if appropriate, and as Susan Jeffers said “feel the fear and do it any way”
Another alternative is about taking the pressure off and allowing yourself to focus on just doing the task to the best of your current abilities can result in you really surprising yourself.
Usually when someone feels that they have to “fake it” there is a set of expectations they feel that they need to be “living up to”. Sometimes these are expectations that have been set by other people. More commonly, these expectations have been set by our own judgements and comparisons.
These are either a comparison to someone else or by our own judgement about what they think they should do if they were being perfect. It can be worth checking the beliefs, judgements and expectations you are setting for yourself – and if they are really needed.
I mentioned in my post yesterday, “Why did I start Coaching Confidence, the coaching blog?”, I believe having an exposure to different approaches, opinions and techniques give coaches a greater flexibility when they coach. So feel free to share other approached you have/could use instead of “fake it ‘til you make it.”
Alternatively, if you feel particularly strongly that “fake it ‘til you make it” is the only approach to use, you’re more than welcome to comment as well 🙂