Faking it to Make it

I am no Rebecca Bloomwood but sometimes…..
I can’t tell if I am making it or faking it.
I do believe there is some validity to the silly mantra, “fake it till you make it.” While probably not ideal to pad your resume Bloomwood style, I am guilty of applying the fake it technique in a different subject area. When it comes to negative thinking (especially about yourself) sometimes you just have to find a way to make yourself stop. For my fellow strugglers, simply stopping doesn’t always cut it. You have to replace the thoughts and quickly take up all the extra room in your head with something else or negativity wiggles and squirm s its way back in.

Hence, start faking it. Some mornings I wake up feeling in a “poo on a stick” kind of mood. I can’t take my hair, my face, my acne, my outfit, my lack of skills at work, my, my…….. STOP. What a horrible way to start your day. This isn’t the mood I want to burden myself or the ones I love with. Spending my whole day obsessing over myself is not going to help. So I fake it. I force a smile on and go to work. In the car I dance extra crazy to a song I don’t even like on the radio. I greet everyone with a smile and hearty hello on the bus. I act like this is the best freakin day in my life. I say cheesy stuff to fill up my head like:
“I love my job!” “I am so blessed to have this job!”
No lie, I start listing positive traits about the people I work with. Ex: {Name} is so passionate about loving children, {Name} seems so sincere and down to earth, etc . This shifts my thoughts from me to others, but still the trick is to stay affirmative about others or you will find yourself back in a sour mood.

Before I know it, I am hanging a 10 o’clock medicine for a patient and sincerely investing in conversation with a parent. I am engaged in people, fostering relationships, doing my job the best I can, enjoying my job the best I can and have completely forgotten that I was faking it. I realize I have been cheerful and pleasant all morning. I don’t even know at what point the transition took place, but somewhere along the way I was no longer faking it, I was making it.

There are bad days too. Where you are tired, unfriendly, and really just want to simply get through the day. And that is ok. This isn’t really about BAD days. I am sharing how I a stop the Negative thought cycle from spinning all day. I am not advocating the idea to never be real with your emotions.

Some people will read this and think this makes me shallow or fake, or less deep and sincere. If that is you, I have a hunch that you are a) super hot and/or super confident :) so have never been sucked up into a Negative Tornado that has blown to pieces any possibility of a good day or b) probably misunderstanding me…. This is most likely due to the fact that I am not always the best at clearly getting out my point.

Without fear of sounding arrogant,(Ok that is a lie, I am a little worried that this will sound arrogant) I am proud of myself that these “poo on a stick” mornings do not come as often as they used to. I am sooo glad that they don’t.