Does Faking It Until You Make It Actually Work?

I’ve been undergoing a bit of a personal crisis (I will write about it eventually), and in the past few months I’ve started to feel like I’m constantly existing with a dull ache of existentialism and general purposelessness undermining everything I do. Since I’ve been feeling especially bad lately, I decided to take two actionable steps: I signed up for therapy again and I started faking it again.

I’ve used the ‘faking it ‘till you make it’ tactic in a variety of circumstances before. I’ve faked that I’m calm when I’m definitely not. I’ve faked being a local when I’m most certainly a tourist. I’ve faked being more confident at work than I actually am. And now I’m faking that I’m happy most of the time when I’m not.

Science is still divided on whether or not faking it until you make it actually works but clearly it’s been helpful for me when used in certain cases.

Obviously, you can only fake so much. When I’ve faked being more confident at work, it was because I was able to recognize that I had something valuable to share, but I was having trouble working up the courage to speak up. In that case, I needed to fake the confidence but not the information itself. You can commit to faking it if you’ve correctly identified that it is also within your power to make it.

So let’s apply this to happiness. I know that it is within my power to be happy. I’ve been happy before, it stands to reason I can be happy again. I don’t have any prevailing mental or physical health issues, so my attitude is more or less within my power. It’s almost like coping with a breakup. During breakups, your mind is reeling from the withdrawal of a major dopamine source - a lover. Therefore your recovery is focused on regaining your happiness levels without that person. 

Fake happiness for me comes down to staying busy. If I don’t give my mind time to wallow and to work itself into a dark place then usually it will do the opposite. I have a hunch that a lot of my negative emotions are simply stemming from too much time alone. The nature of my work and the pandemic leaves me with a lot of time to spend in my own head. I’m already a high strung person, but this environment amplifies all those tendencies. I’m more likely to invent problems. To get anxious about things that probably will never happen. To fixate on the smallest of inconveniences.

So does it work? Have I actually been feeling better when I succeed at faking it? 

I have. For me, faking it works because it distracts my mind and reminds me of my other emotions. I’m task and relationship oriented. I give myself goals, things to do, and people to see. So even though I still feel anxious and down, if I force myself to feel something else through sheer distraction, the new feelings tend to stick for awhile. I remember that things aren’t actually as bad as I’ve made them out to be. No matter how unhappy I might be in one area of my life, I have so many other parts of my life that still do bring me joy. If I can distract myself enough with those parts, it makes the negative ones seem more manageable. It comes down to making sure I create opportunities to continue to fake it. I make dinner reservations, I ask my sister to come over and watch anime with me, I plan trips weeks in advance.

Faking it can feel stupid at first. Your internal monologue might take it as a betrayal. Who are you to pretend to be happy when you know how shitty you feel on the inside? Shouldn’t you be honest? Shouldn’t you reflect how you feel on the inside? I know that’s how I feel sometimes. Honesty is important, and working through those feelings eventually is essential. But dwelling on them? Letting them to eat away at other parts of your life? That’s not necessary. Faking it has allowed me to claw back some real happier feelings and even though it feels disingenuous sometimes, it’s a coping tactic I’m not sorry for and that I will continue to use until it stops working. 

Pictured: me distracting myself in Aspen with skiing and wine