Coaching practices for Fake it Till You Become it

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Fake it Till You Become it, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• Whenever I try to act like the person I want to be
• I keep waiting to feel confident before I’ll raise my hand or go for the thing, and the confidence never just shows up
• I keep putting off the thing
• Everyone around me seems so sure of themselves, and I’m convinced I’m the only one secretly faking it
• I’m so used to managing how I come across that I’m not even sure people know the real me

Practices that may help

1. Build self-familiarity with new identities through low-stakes repetition
   Repeatedly acting in a new way — even in small doses — makes the new behavior feel like you.
   The Mere Exposure Effect, Made Practical
2. Understand the "become it" claim accurately
   Sustained behavioral practice of confidence — acting as if — can build real self-efficacy over time, through mastery experiences rather than pose duration.
   Power Posing Revisited
3. Act before you feel ready
   Take the competent action now and let confidence catch up, instead of waiting to feel sure.
   Overcoming Imposter Syndrome, Made Practical
4. Normalize impostor feelings through selective disclosure
   Tell one trusted peer that you sometimes feel like a fraud — you will almost always find the feeling is mutual.
   Impostor Phenomenon, Made Practical
5. Cultivate authenticity
   Let go of who you think you’re supposed to be and show up as who you actually are.
   The Gifts of Imperfection, Made Practical
6. Allow natural behavioral mimicry rather than forcing it
   Unconscious mirroring happens automatically in warm interactions — over-deliberate mirroring breaks it.
   Mirroring and Matching, Made Practical
7. Fix the inner state, not the outer mask
   Your body language broadcasts your real internal state — so change the state, not the surface.
   The Charisma Myth, Made Practical
8. Impostor Phenomenon, Made Practical
   Impostor phenomenon — the persistent belief that one’s success is undeserved and will soon be “exposed” — is not a character flaw but a cognitive pattern common among high achievers, first documented by Clance and Imes in 1978. It responds to evidence-gathering, cognitive restructuring, and normalization, though change is gradual rather than immediate.
9. Seek mentors who name their own uncertainty
   Actively look for respected people who openly describe their own learning curve — they recalibrate your model of what mastery looks like.
   Impostor Phenomenon, Made Practical
10. Stop surface acting
    Recognize when you’re masking emotions at work or in relationships, and find low-cost outlets for what you actually feel.
    Radical Honesty About Emotions, Made Practical

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