“Fake it till you make it” used to be a phrase I swore by, a phrase that I wholeheartedly believed in. It was something that would give my ego a boast when I was down or feeling sorry for myself. It really used to resonate with me-if you don’t know something, fake like you do, until you actually do! It was that simple, until I started to see what that same mentality, was doing to people around me. I thought to myself, am I one of these idiots? Would I rather risk my job or not be able to pay my bills just because I wanted to save face?
At work, I would see people on critical projects epitomize every letter of the phrase. They would raise their hands in all the meetings, give their approval for things they knew absolutely nothing about, just to receive praise and a “job well done”. Only to find out, in hindsight, that their work was rushed and full of errors which would ultimately put the whole time behind. Were they really that proud? Was I that way? Too proud to ask questions or seek clarity? All in the name of some stupid phrase which could potentially make them ruin their reputation, miss out on a promotion or even lose their job.
In life, I’ve seen people fake like they’ve made it, I mean who hasn’t. They buy all the nicest clothes, cars, and material things money could buy. Then those same people, behind closed doors, don’t have enough money to keep the lights on or don’t know how they’ll pay their mortgage next month.
People will go to extreme measures to gain respect from their peers and to promote prestige. That’s the problem. Unfortunately, in today’s society, it’s more about what everyone else thinks and less about doing what’s best for you within your means.
It’s a pretty popular trend that is plaguing America, a trend where far too many people are “faking it” and in fact, not making it. They are more concerned about how others perceive them and less concerned about how to actually make it and reach their goals. People are way too worried about saving face and not concerned enough about the direction they are headed in and why they are going that way!
Can you fake weight loss until you drop the pounds? Unless your game plan is plastic surgery, then no you can’t. What you can do and what you can control, is how much work in put into your goal, your focus, and your diet. Even then, after all that hard work and sacrifice, all you can do is painstakingly with persistence and patience, watch the pounds fall off little by little.
Can you fake being a doctor? No, no matter how much you want to help people, in order to do it properly and be impactful, you need to make the grades, study hard, get into school, and put in the hours.
Can you fake being rich? Sure you can but faking it will only drive you further away from your goal because you aren’t putting in the time or effort equivalent to being deserving of that goal. You get the point.
In essence, what you receive is in direct portion to what you give. The problem with faking it is that, hard work is removed from the equation and replaced with entitlement. When a person feels entitled to something that he or she really doesn’t deserve because they didn’t put in the work to get it, it makes the actual “making it” part not as sweet. Faking it is easy and generally, whenever anything is easy or easily attained, it is never as satisfying to the soul as handwork, suffering, and challenge are.
Think about people who train their butts off for marathons. I’m talking months and months of pounding the pavement, managing their mile times, and strengthening their mental endurance. They are out there training day in and day out to make sure they are able to run every inch of the 26 miles that will be played out before them on race day. Usain Bolt (Worlds Fastest Man and eight-time Olympic gold medalist) probably said it best – “The competition is the easy part, behind the scenes is where the work is done.”
In this day and age, the world is at you and I’s fingerprints. Everything we need to know and want to learn, can be found at the click of a button. We are inundated with Information! We should be called “generation information overload” because there are literally NO excuses left or reasons why you or I can not to be our best selves. Its time to level-up and really start making $hit happen.
I’ve learned from my past and from others, that maybe I haven’t quite “made it” yet, but I’m embracing the challenge by bridging the gap between where I am now and where I want to be. I no longer feel the need to fake it because in the end, the joke would just be on me.
Faking it is easy, it’s instant, and taste good for a little while but ultimately it leaves you in the same place you started. On the other hand, striving to reach a goal, understanding that you don’t know everything, and taking responsibility for your life, is the stuff that dreams are made of. So stop being short sighted and hell bent on garnering accolades from your friends and family when deep down you know you truly don’t deserve the praise. Instead, dig deep, put your pride aside, put in the hard work, stop faking it, and finally start truly making it.
This random quote sums it all up –
“Take small steps every day and one day you’ll get there” -Unknown
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