Fake It Till You Win The French Open

June 14, 2019

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Where does confidence come from?

Most people operate under the assumption that they’re terrible unless proven otherwise.

Every time something doesn’t work out…

See, I was right. I’m not good at anything.

The only way out is to have the results magically change in their favor. Instead of failing, the results need to be perfectly fantastic. If that happens often enough, then–and only then–will confidence replace pessimism.

Of course, with the pre-judgement of failure, success won’t break through. Our subconscious proves our initial assumption without us even trying. If we lack confidence, we think we’ll lose. If we think we’ll lose, we lose. It’s the un-virtuous circle.

So where does confidence come from?

Studies show there is a cure: act as-if.

If we act as if we’re already confident, our subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference. Even if we don’t believe in ourselves in our darkest moments, faking it changes our brain patterns. It starts to create the confident, successful scenario despite how we originally felt.

Fake it until we make it.

The problem is that a lot of people don’t believe that faking it works. Even if it does.

Just look at our current French Open champion.

Ashleigh Barty is an incredibly skilled tennis player. She has been for a long time.

But in 2014 she quit tennis in despair. She didn’t think she could do it. And she wasn’t doing it.

Despite her elite ability, she was losing matches and becoming miserable. She left the tour in 2014 and became a professional cricket player.

There’s only one reason you leave something: when you know you can’t do it.

Her confidence was gone.

Eventually, the pain went away and she missed tennis again. So she decided to try doubles.

Why doubles? Because sometimes we’re stronger with someone standing next to us. By focusing on someone else, we forget to doubt ourselves.

And doubles went very well. She was among the best in the world when she had a partner.

After enough winning in doubles, the discussion became inevitable.

If I can do it in doubles, why not singles? 

So she surrounded herself with people who were confident in her, and acted as-if.

In 2017, Barty’s singles ranking was 271 in the world.

After winning the French Open, Ashleigh is now ranked #2.

Did you hear her post-match comments? She said, more than once, how proud she was of winning this title. She was proud of herself, proud of her team.

Why did she keep saying that?

Because it keeps the doubts at bay.

By constantly focusing on the positive, the positive results have a pathway to come out.

She was so down, she quit a sport in which she might be the best in the world.

How did she go from quitting to confident?

She started acting as if she was the best player in the world, whether she believed it or not.

She created confidence out of thin air.

She faked her way to the top of the world.

My book is called The Inevitability of Becoming Rich, and you can find that here.