Ask Lemmy

You know when you’re nervous about something, and people say “just be confident!” ? Thats when you gotta fake it til you make it

Going to sleep. Every night we lie down, close our eyes and fake sleeping until we actually make it and fall asleep for real.

My career. I made it.

Edit for context: I never finished school, and as such I have no formal education in what I do. But I've always enjoyed tinkering with servers and networks. This coincidentally became highly relevant in this (seemingly very unrelated) job I had a couple of eons ago. After I quit I exaggerated that detail and used it to pretend I was a professional in my field on future job applications, and that worked out well... until one day I suddenly realized that I'm actually a professional in my field.

Today I can say that I'm good at what I do.. but it's (Mostly) a result of winging it and learning as I go.

Literally anything that isn't life or death. You can learn it as you go.

Elon Musk sued the founders of Tesla for the right to be called a "Founder" of Tesla. Then he fired the founders and pretends that he's the one who innovated everything.

Elon Musk goes on for the next 10+ years to become the richest man in the world with over $100 Billion net worth. As it turns out, faking it works. Well... until you need to design a new car and the best Elon can do is make a Cybertruck.

Certainly not piloting, bridge building, or surgery.

Confidence.

Art and music. If you act like you have some sort of cache and community respect, it's easier to socially hop with other artists and some customers also assume you're a big shot they haven't heard about yet. I was always pretty low-key but saw a few people use this as a path to success.

Life in general. I was nearly 40 when I realized three important things; I have the word 'senior' in my job title, other people look to me for direction, no one steering this ship really knew to begin with.

Much like how one day you will pick up your kid for the last time and not realize it, eventually you look around and notice you and your peers are in charge (for better or worse).

If you have a perfectly normal (non-pathological) lack of confidence then pretending to be confident may allegedly help you. A cynic could remark that that requires knowing what that looks like and being able to pull it off, while almost nobody offering that particular "advice" seems to feel a huge need to elaborate on it.

It's a cliché.

E V E R Y T H I N G

Mostly in times of economic growth and very positive sentiment. It's the antidote to the catch-22 that you can't get a particular job without the experience but can't get the experience without the job.

Simply put 'fake it until' applies when you can put experience you don't (quite) have on a CV; get the job and acquire the experience before it is ever tested in any meaningful way. That only really happens in a period of rapid economic expansion (whether that be in your (their) business, sector, or country wide). In such cases no-one really knows what they're doing.

I don't have much experience of celeb or influencer culture FITYMI - finding someones parked Lamborghini or private plane and dancing in front of it for a TikTok pretending that is yours.

Any sales job, most programming jobs, and clean laundry

Acting like it wasn't a shart.

Art

Running

Some things about it are true in minor ways, like frowning brings your mood down. Being nice to others feels better, so you start to feel a little better for having done so.

And knowing that this actually has an impact on the people around you helps you become more empathetic.

I'm a better leader for my team at work because I'm not depressed all the time. I know it, they know it, and it helps.

I didn't make it. But I'm no longer faking it as much.

Anything. Something it is good => build confident, make people make a first step on learning.

Something it is bad => scam ... until someone believe you.

Marketing