'Faking it 'til you make it' is an idea whose time has come. Self-improvement gurus all advocate it, rightly, as an incredibly powerful tool for change, but suppose you find it a difficult idea to get your head around. Does that mean you should give up on the idea? Should you accept that the challenges you're experiencing around 'faking it' can hold you back from 'making it'? Or is it something you can learn?

I'll come clean; 'fake it 'til you make it' is an idea that I found very difficult to grasp. First of all, I couldn't understand why it would ever work and second, if life is looking bleak, isn't it more realistic to make a plain, bald statement to the effect that life is bleak?

To answer the second point first; no, because when all is said and done we assess everything, including what is 'realistic' and self-evident, from our own subjective standpoint.

Human beings are as gifted at oversimplifying as they are at living anywhere but the present moment. We naturally favour absolutes. If things are bad then we tend to see them as 100% bad, rather than, say, 75% bad with occasional splashes of fair to good.

When things are bad that bleakness is all enveloping; it envelops the present, the past -optional-, the future - definitely. How disheartening is that? Given that most of us lack the power to see into the future, it's curious how we put our trust in 'what we know that just ain't so'.

Faking it until you make it, as I understand it, is the process of breaking down the state you aspire to into small manageable pieces so as to offer yourself the piece or pieces you can manage right now, that best convey the sense of well being you desire.

If that's as clear as mud, an illustration might help. If you want to feel good about yourself, but assume that a number of major conditions outside you need to be met before that can happen, stop being 'realistic' for a moment.

Instead of telling yourself "That's not going to happen", think yourself into that state of well-being. Or if you prefer, you can get to the same place by completing this sentence: "I'll know when I'm feeling good about myself, because I won't...."

Maybe you won't feel anxious, or frightened, or like you always have to be looking over your shoulder. You then want to set up a safe situation in which, even if only for 10 or 15 minutes at a time, you can feel free from that negative emotion. It can be as simple as wallowing in a bubble bath or sitting in a park enjoying the countryside. Just for those 10 or 15 minutes you have to commit to being as present in that situation as you could be if you felt good about yourself.

You also have to commit to repeating that exercise as many times a week as you can.

That, for me, is faking it 'til you make it. Instead of focusing on the bleak percentage of your life, you're turning your attention onto what gives you joy, which is the easiest and most effective way of multiplying the bright percentage. In fact, you're starting to leverage the little known law that 'whatever you turn your attention on increases'. As it increases you start to really know a different, and more dynamic way of being.

T. Harv Eker, author of "The Millionaire Mind" writes: "how do you know if you know something? Simple. If you live it, you know it. Otherwise, you heard about it, you read about it, or you talk about it, but you don't know it." When you do truly turn you attention on the state you aspire to, you start to "live it".

Before very long, "faking it" has created a new, authentic experience of your desired state. Who knows where that experience will lead? You'll only know it, when you live it. Bring it on, I say.

(C) 2005 Annie Kaszina