Fake it 'Til it Feels Good

I wake up grumpy and stumble toward the coffee pot. I grumble as I let the dogs out to do their 'business'. I hurry back to the kitchen, nearly slipping and falling on the wet tile. It isn't a good morning. The sun isn't up and even when it does rise, it will hide behind the clouds all day. I have ten million things on my never-ending to-do list and a bunch of errands to run. My head hurts and I'd rather just crawl back into bed.

Doesn't sound like the start of a good day, does it?

Well, it all depends on how you look at it.

I read an interesting book recently that suggested that if you want to feel differently about something, you should 'act' different. For example, if you wanted to feel happier, you should smile more. I thought this sounded rather odd. The old school of thought was that if you wanted something, you should 'imagine' it. 'Think it and you can be it.' That never worked for me. I imagined for years that I would some day be a writer, but I never actually wrote anything. I tried imagining that I didn't feel overwhelmed and stressed out all the time, but that didn't work either.

Recently, I thought I would try the 'smile' theory and guess what? It really works! I went to the grocery store and rather than grumbling about the people who were in my way, I tried smiling at them. It is really amazing the responses you get from people with just a simple smile. Now, granted, some people are not very happy and even if you walked up and handed them a check for a million dollars and told them they just won the lottery, they would probably grumble and say 'Great, now I will have to pay taxes on all this!'

But even if you run into the occasional pessimist, you should keep smiling. The goal here is to feel good.

So if you want something in life, don't just think about it, act like you already have it. And if you are feeling doubtful or worried or uncertain, just fake it! Serioulsy! I'm not saying that you can act like you a millionaire and go to the bank machine and drain your bank account, but if you simply want to feel better or happier, give this a try. What's the worst that can happen?

BTW, the book is 59 Seconds, Think a Little, Change a Lot: