For Christmas, I bought my wife a vase. Super boring I suppose, but it is a Finnish brand my wife likes, and she has wanted one for years. The problem is that it is quite large and we don't really have anywhere to put it when there are no flowers in it, so the other day I put it on top of our wall cabinets in the kitchen. And while it looked minimalist chic there in my opinion, I also thought it might do better with something in it that could easily be removed. So for the first time in my life, I bought some fake flowers.
Lame? Tacky?
Probably. But since I can't afford to put fresh cut flowers in it every few days, this'll do for its storage state. In a month or so, it will have fresh peonies from the garden.
A decade or two ago there was a big push for the "fake it til you make it" movement, but I think that people who subscribed to it didn't really grasp the concept. I think for most, they saw the "fake it" part as lying to people about skills and then learning on the job. And while I think there is some leeway that can be given to that, I don't believe that is what is meant by faking it.
Instead, I think it is more about doing the things that are required of the role, until one is proficient at them. It isn't lying, it is active growth. This is related to what I have written about before regarding being the kind of person one wants to be, takes doing the things that kind of person does. The faking isn't in what one tells others or oneself, it is in the being the person, even though the skills are not there yet.
It is a position of vulnerability.
Do it until you can do it, even when others believe you can't or won't. It will come with failure while you are doing your best to fake being able to do something, so be prepared to wear failures, take responsibility for then, don't lie about it. And ask for some help occasionally too, as it supports the growth process.
I think the faking it is more about taking what is being attempted seriously enough, even though the skills aren't there. It is like starting to play tennis, where even though you suck and your opponent might suck too, you can put the effort in and facilitate learning, speeding up the improvement transition.
There is already too many fake people telling who they are, but behaving altogether differently. The internet is filled with liars, whose words are far larger than their experience. Perhaps what we would benefit from is where the effort we put into improvement is larger than what we broadcast verbally.
We do more than we say we do.
As said, their is some credence to stepping into a bigger shoe role, with small feet and especially these days, it night require some passing to get there. There is value in the "background grind" where the work is done without any eyes watching, so when needed to perform, it looks easy. Easiness is about being prepared, not about being lazy.
Lazy isn't easy, except in the moment.
It is easy to be lazy, but when things inevitably go wrong down the track, most of us blame the circumstances of the hard moment, without attributing the part we played in being unprepared, when we chose to be lazy instead. Fake it til you make it requires dedication to development, which means that it means being active, not lazy. It isn't a shortcut to success, it is a commitment to being relentless in growth.
There are a lot of fakers these days, and it has been made increasingly easy through digital mediums using AI supports and google searches. Online, people can pretend to be all kinds of things, even when they have no direct experience at all. It is pretty easy to spot them over multiple interactions, but so much of the platform conversation is one and done. But even so, I wonder what feeling they have when they look in the mirror and realise, they are only fake?
What are they making?
Taraz
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