Are You Faking It Until You Make It Or Are You Being Authentic?

How to tell if you are faking it or being authentic.

Faking it or being authentic? I had an interesting conversation with a client the other day. She had heard someone say that you can’t fake it until you make it because then that meant you were being inauthentic. This bothered her. There were things she was doing to grow her business. And there were some she was doing things that she didn’t really love but knew brought her the results she wanted.

She had been going along working to reach the goals she set and was reaching them when all of sudden she was stopped in her tracks. This concept of being fake threw her for a loop. “I want to be authentic” she told me. So I asked her what made her think she wasn’t being authentic.

Her response was, “well, I’m not doing what I love to grow my business, I’m only doing it because it’s something that works.” I asked her if she felt she was being genuine in her actions, to herself and to her clients. She responded  “Oh, yes!” with enthusiasm.

What does authentic mean? If you Google it you’ll get this: something that is real, genuine. And if you are being real and genuine you can’t be faking it.

There are times I’m not totally genuine…, then what?

True, there may be times when you are less then genuine. Such as “I’d love to work with you, but now is not the right time.” when you truly are just saying that to get off the phone with whomever is asking for your business. A heartfelt, “No, thank you, this is not for me.” would be truly authentic.

I’m not going to get into little white lies here, so let’s just say only you know when you are being authentic or fake. Now, if you truly want to be authentic, it’s time you look yourself in the mirror (no matter how hard that is) and tell yourself that no matter what, you will be authentic in your life.

Let go of the times you weren’t, learn from them and move on. The “then what” is you’ll no longer have to fake anything, you can really be yourself. Now, what a novel idea that is, eh?!

What if I still need to do things that I don’t want to do.

Welcome to life! Will my client stop doing what has been getting her results? No. Not entirely. What she will do though is look at it differently to be more authentic in her actions and that may cause her to do things differently. There are times that you do have to do things you don’t like, exercise anyone?! 😉 Going to the dentist, need I go on? I don’t think so, you get my point.

What I propose you do is to look at it differently, how can you be authentic even when doing things or being in situations that you do not like or do not want to do? How can you find one thing in a situation that you can use to show up as your true authentic self. And guess what, that may be to admit “I don’t want to be here.” Rather than smiling, sucking it up and saying “I’m so glad to be here.”

I can see the look of horror on your face. I can hear you saying “I can’t do that.” But, you can! I’m not saying it’s easy, I struggle with it myself and the alternative is to be fake and unauthentic. So what it is you want to be?

I thought so.

What did you think as you read this? I’d love to hear your thoughts. If I pushed any buttons, what were they and would you like to do anything about them? Either reply below or email me privately at kim@kimravida.com

I’ve worked with a lot of women who struggled with feeling that they weren’t being as authentic as they would like to be and who wanted to change that. If you feel that you are doing more faking it than you’d like, set up a free private session with me to help you find your authentic self!