September 28, 2021 • 17 mins
A listener sent an email asking Amy's thoughts on the "fake it till you make it" mentality, so licensed therapist @Kat.Defatta {who is now joining Amy on Tuesday episodes indefintly} shared with us the pros & cons of this very popular saying and taught us about behavior activation!!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the Fifth Thing, the bonus episode
to the Four Things podcast, where I've got emails that
you sent in, but I've also got Cat to followed
by my side. She's a licensed therapist, and I'm excited
about our topic today, which is fake it till you
make it. Someone emailed in about that. But we always
start Tuesday episodes off with a quote, and this is
one that I pulled from Instagram the other day and
(00:26):
actually texted it to Cat because I loved it so much,
and it had been reposted in someone else's story, and
then I just took a screenshot. Actually, you reposted it.
That's why I sent it to you. Okay, that's all
making sense now. So Cat posted it, I took a
screenshot sent it to her and I was like, this
is so good. But originally Hailey Page McGee had put
it up and she's a codependency recovery coach. And the
(00:50):
quote is self sacrifice is not a synonym for kindness.
Self sacrifice is not a synonym for kindness. Feel like,
I want to read it one more time for the
people in the back. Self sacrifice is not a synonym
for kindness, And oftentimes we sacrifice ourselfs because we don't
(01:11):
want to disrupt anything. We don't want to hurt anybody's feelings,
we don't want to add waves, we don't want to
ruffle the feathers. So we just lean into whatever is
going to be easiest and more comfortable for everybody, which
can come across as kind. Well, actually it can be
neither kind nor unkind. Well, I was going to say,
I think that this is talking about the difference between
(01:33):
being nice and being kind, or being nice is doing
the polite thing, which a lot of times self sacrifice.
It's like the polite thing or the quote unquote typical
right thing to do or whatever, versus being kind. Is
more about honesty and if I really this isn't something
that's serving me, it's better, I think, to be honest
than be polite. Right, Thank you for clarifying, But you
(01:55):
can still be honest in a kind, kind way. Right,
It's not like saying being that's like saying boundaries are mean.
Boundaries aren't mean. Most of the time people that think
the boundary is mean, it's because they're affected by your boundary.
But if you're someone where boundaries are hard, like for me,
boundaries can send me into a panic attack because I
(02:16):
have not exercised my boundary muscle enough and you're still
operating out of a people pleasing place. And certain relationships,
it just depends, but it's uncomfortable for me. It is
daunting to think about in certain relationships. So oftentimes I
end up the martyr in a situation because I again
(02:38):
don't want to disrupt, so I'm willing to sacrifice my
truth and my happiness just to keep everybody and there's
someone else happy. And what happens is when we do that,
then we build resentment, and then that's not kind, right,
and you're all erupt like a volcano. Okay, So that
was the quote. Just a little thing on that, but
(03:01):
something to really think about. If that's resonating with you
right now, spend some time with it. Think about certain
relationships where you you know that could be happening, especially
if you know you have codependent tendencies. So now to
the email that I got, which is from Lisa, not
the Lisa that I co host out Way with Lisa Hame,
but just a listener named Lisa that was asking me
(03:25):
my thoughts on fake it till you Make It. She
was curious if I think that it does more harm
than good. And honestly, I've been guilty of saying that
because that's just an easy thing to say, and you
hear it all the time, and a lot of times
I don't know what I'm doing. I figure things out
as I go. So I feel like, you know, fake
it till you make it mortality. You're saying that like
it's you already decided that that's a bad thing. I
(03:46):
don't know if it's a bad thing, but I am
guilt I'm saying it. I don't think I've ever put
much thought into whether it could do more harm than good.
I guess I've thought it's a It's a saying that's
fairly innocent and kind of explains that there's been times
in my life where I've been figuring things out and
kind of faking my way through it till I have
(04:07):
it figured out. But then I realized a lot of
times you just never have it figured out. You just
keep going, which is okay. And I think that if
you think that everybody has someone, if you're looking up
to someone you think they have it all figured out,
they don't. So I am simply saying that I'm guilty
of being like fake it till you make it, And
I don't know if that is I'm I guess I'm
(04:29):
asking you your take on if that could actually be
harmful for someone to hear or lean into that statement
as like a mantra. I think it can be both
harmful and helpful, depending on how you're using it, who's
using it, all of the meaning behind it. I don't
think this is something that we can blanket say like
don't ever use it or don't ever say that. And
(04:51):
that's something that I've seen happening especially on like Instagram
and and people almost demonizing this phrase, where I think
it can be really helpful. Okay, I use this. It
speaks to this thing called behavioral activation, which is basically
faking it till you make it. It's doing a behavior
before the shift has happened in your thought process, and
(05:13):
by doing that behavior, the shift can and will happen
eventually in your thought process. A really easy example is movement. Walking.
Anything can be really really helpful to help people who
feel levels of depression. But somebody who's depressed is never
going to be like super super excited to go out
and go for a walk, right, So we use behavior
(05:34):
activation and we create behavior goals to get them to
go out and do it until they actually do get
excited to go in those walks because they learn that
that helps change the brain chemistry so in a way,
and that is them. It's like tell you they make it. Yeah,
it's like tell yourself you want to go until you
actually start wanting to go. But this also speaks to
like career stuff, Like you're saying, like if I waited
(05:56):
to feel confident in hosting a podcast to start a podcast, asked,
I would absolutely never, ever, ever ever do it because
I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know
if I was going to be good at it. I
didn't know if I was going to like it. But
I was like, Okay, I'm just gonna do it until
I do feel confident. Right. Do you feel confident now? Sometimes? Sometimes?
But you still have a yeah. And I think where
(06:17):
it's the ficket to make it. It's like we're put
we're projecting a false narrative of who we are. But
I also don't show up as a person who thinks
that I have to be perfect to be up here. Yeah,
And I think that's a that's a good reminder that
you guess you don't have to know about everything before
you go all in. Like if you feel the urge
to go do something, or you're passionate about something that
(06:38):
you it's exciting you, it's stirring something up in you. Yeah,
I wouldn't wait till you know every single thing about it.
So it's what is the ficket two you make it?
What is it meaning to you? What's that message? Because
this could speak to like confidence and self esteem of
if we wait to change what we think about ourselves
before we go and do things we want to do
(06:59):
with our lives, that's gonna never ever happen because our
stories changed not just with information, they change with experience.
We are matching information that we're learning awareness with experiences
that we're having to change the belief system inside of
our bodies, inside of our brains. So we have to
have action. I saw a headline the other day that
(07:26):
said something like eight percent of people suffer from low
self esteem. I believe that. Yeah, I couldn't decide if
that was like really high or but also like what's
the degree of their low self esteem? Because I, in
certain moments I might have low self esteem, but what's
the degree of it was just a headline and I'm
just pulling it up because I well, I mean, I
guess I could search it up real quick to try
to find it. But I mean I think that, Yeah,
(07:48):
you're right, any given day I might wake up and
have low self esteem that day, But do I have
it every single day? And is it okay for you
to have like some ick feelings and do it anyway.
That's the thing of like, i might be feeling a
little self conscious today, but I'm going to go out
and do this thing anyway rather than wait until I
changed my mind. Okay, So is that an example of
(08:10):
behavioral activation on your self esteem? So it's changing the
behavior so I can change my thought process. So whenever
I'm about to go speak, I'm thinking of a time
in particular where I was invited to New York to
speak on a panel and our CEO of my Heart
was there and all of these other way bigger than
(08:31):
me in my mind type people where I did not
feel worthy to be up there. In fact, I kept
asking myself like who got sick or dropped out last minute?
To where I then was called and invited to be
on this panel and I just did. I was nervous,
did not feel equipped to be up there. But I
had to change the narrative in my head before I
(08:54):
walked out on stage, because I didn't want that to
be the energy I was putting out there. I had
to tell myself, you deserve to be here. They invited
you for a reason, and they want to hear what
you have to say. But I mean, there was questions
that were just thrown out, like I know what was coming,
and I thought, I'm going to sound So I'm next
to some girl that's on I don't know, some news
(09:17):
channel that she's just she's speaks on TV for a living,
and I'm like, I do the Bobby Bone Show, so
I mean, which is fine. But we're you know, playing
you know, easy trivia and you know, telling stories from
our life. And she's someone from the news reporting on
the news and can handle serious questions. And I feel
(09:37):
like we were there and it was a sort of
serious topic. And but I do feel like, Okay, well
that's her lane, and I've got my lane and I
can offer a different perspective. So I just started to
own my lane, and I psyched myself up not out.
I gave myself that confidence boost internally that I needed
to take the stage and deliver my answers with confidence.
(10:00):
And I believed in myself. And that is an example
of me faking it till I made it. And what
is it behavior? Because you're not saying I have to
wait until I believe this. You're you're giving when you're
psyching yourself up, you're saying, I'm I'm good enough. They
asked me to be on here for a reason. You
might not fully percent believe those things. You might still
(10:21):
have questions about them, right because I, yes, I had
low self esteem going into it by having the narrative
that surely me getting invited was an acted or surely
they wanted so and so, but that person couldn't show up,
so they invited me. I had multiple stories and lies
in my head. But then when I switched it, And
(10:43):
then also I was intentional about doing things that work
in my favor, which these are things that make me
feel good. They may not work for you. But I
made sure I had enough time to get to New
York and have time to be in my hotel room
and do my hair the way I want to, and
have makeup, and I wore a suit that made me
feel super confident. I called it kind of like a
(11:03):
power suit situation. But things like that, those are things
I know that I can do on the front side
that are going to help send me into that more confident.
I mean, I just think there's things we can do
to help set ourselves up for success. They may vary
depending on who you are. Of things rituals, or things
you need to do before you enter an environment. What
(11:25):
can you do to set yourself up for that success?
If there's behavior activation, can you also do other these
like little side activation hoping mechanisms? Is it? Because yeah,
for me, it's something that makes me feel more comfortable.
Like if I feel trolling, what you can control? There
you go. So I know these things. I'm really confident
about these things. I love my outfit and I think
it looks good. I like whatever I feel calm doing
(11:45):
a breathing exercise. I like to get places with time
so I don't feel rushed. Yes to calm my anxiety.
And I get trolling what you can control? Well, And
you know it's New York. What if I get stuck
in some crazy traffic and then I'm late and I'm rushed?
But thankfully I was all to control those things. And
so you may not be speaking on a stage in
New York, But what little things in your life can
(12:06):
you do to set yourself up? If you are feeling
low about something or having low self esteem about X
y Z in your life, what are things you can
do to take back some of that control and give
you that confidence boost that you need. What do you
need to help you actually do the behavior that's scaring
you or you don't think that you can or should.
(12:29):
For me, the suit helped, yeah, and quite And then
I think I looked at myself in the mirror before
I left my hotel room and I was like, you
got this, you can do this. You deserve to be here,
and I went on my way. Like, if we go
back to the walking example, maybe you really do not
want to go on this walk and you don't think
it's going to help, but you bought these really cool
nikes and you're really excited to wear them, so okay,
(12:50):
that's going to get you out the door. Go for it,
and then eventually you'll be more excited about the walk
than the shoes. I like that example, but I think
it goes back to really understanding like what you're when
you're saying fake it till I make it, you're saying
I can do this, I can go and do this
interview before I feel fully fully confident to be on
this stage. And it's by telling yourself certain things and
(13:13):
then going and having experience that helps give you evidence
so you can start to believe that. This is kind
of speaking a lot about like cognitive behavioral therapy, which
talks about how your thoughts and your behaviors and your
beliefs are all connected. That's what this is. So in
a nutshell, depending on how you're using fake it till
you make it, it's not harmful. Okay, it can be both.
(13:34):
I'm just answering Lisa's question about it because and yeah,
I don't know why I said in the beginning that
I was guilty of using it, but yeah, I started
to think, like, I don't know it was harmful. I
don't want to be harpful. It could be harmful if
like you feel like maybe your boss or somebody is like,
I don't care that you don't feel confident. Just fake
it till you make it, go out and do it.
And it's like in this like suck it up. Mode
versus we're using it as a tool to help us
(13:56):
get what we want. There's a difference between like, suck
it up and hey, be kind to yourself. You don't
have to be fully confident and know that you're going
to succeed in this to try it. Love it well.
Thank you Cat for you're welcome joining in on this
email that we address. Thank you Lisa for sending it in.
Y'all can send me emails for the fifth Thing, just
(14:16):
four Things with Amy Brown at gmail dot com. And
if you have noticed, Cat was here last week and
she's here again this week, so I guess we can
let people know that you're basically going to start joining
me every Tuesday. We don't have an official name yet.
We might not call it the Fifth Thing anymore, not
quite sure, but it will be emails that you're sending
(14:38):
in or topics that maybe are related to the four
Things podcasts that Cat and I dive deeper into and
I get her expert opinion being a licensed therapist, because
I feel like I do get emails from you guys
that are asking all kinds of questions, and some of
them get really deep and I don't feel equipped to
address them. But I feel more comfortable having Cat on
(15:00):
my side for this for certain emails, and maybe not
this fake it til you make it one. But if
I get a really serious email, which I do get,
and I would want to offer that support because again
I don't want people to feel alone, and I would
love to share the email, but I'm not going to
fake it till I make that. Well, what you're practicing
is staying in your lane, which is very important and
helpful I think right now, because anybody can say anything
(15:22):
on the internet these days and send it to a
mass amount of people. Yes, and I love that people
feel connected and they want to send me personal emails
and they want my advice. But some things I'm just like,
I am not qualified to give this. I mean, I
have certain life experience and I maybe have my opinion,
but I don't know if it's going to be helpful
or harmful, and I just want to Yes, I want
(15:43):
to stay in my lane. But this is also a
community where I'm thankful people feel safe to email in
certain things and I'm like, wow, that's heavy stuff or
that's a lot, and I just feel more comfortable having
Cat here to address those things. So that being said,
send in your emails. We're going to talk about all
kinds of things and this the cat and amy chat
(16:05):
amy and cat chat amy and cat chat amy, catchy
cat chit chat. If anybody else has some names, just
let me know. But this will be for the foreseeable
future what we're doing on Tuesday episodes, and then I'll
have other friends join me on the Thursday episodes, like
Mary used to or has joined me on the Fifth Thing,
or my sister or Chase from time to time, but
(16:27):
we'll just weave them into the Thursday four Things episodes.
So that's just a little update on that. In case
you've listened to this far, and make sure you're following
Cat on Instagram. She's cat dot the FATA K A
T period d E f A T T A and
then she also has a podcast called You Need Therapy.
(16:49):
I suggest you subscribe to that, follow rate review, do
all the things, but if you haven't done that for
my podcast yet, don't do it for hers, do over
my first time, and then do over my I hope
you'll have a great day and I will see you
all on Thursday. My guest will be Mallory Irvin. She
has a huge following on Instagram, so you may know
her there. But she was on two Seasons of Amazing Race.
(17:10):
She was Miss Kentucky. I think she competed in Miss America.
But she's putting out a book. It's called Living Fully
Dare to step into your most vibrant life. So we're
gonna be breaking down her book, and I hope you'll
join us for that conversation. All right, see then bye bye,
Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the Fifth Thing, the bonus episode
to the Four Things podcast, where I've got emails that
you sent in, but I've also got Cat to followed
by my side. She's a licensed therapist, and I'm excited
about our topic today, which is fake it till you
make it. Someone emailed in about that. But we always
start Tuesday episodes off with a quote, and this is
one that I pulled from Instagram the other day and
(00:26):
actually texted it to Cat because I loved it so much,
and it had been reposted in someone else's story, and
then I just took a screenshot. Actually, you reposted it.
That's why I sent it to you. Okay, that's all
making sense now. So Cat posted it, I took a
screenshot sent it to her and I was like, this
is so good. But originally Hailey Page McGee had put
it up and she's a codependency recovery coach. And the
(00:50):
quote is self sacrifice is not a synonym for kindness.
Self sacrifice is not a synonym for kindness. Feel like,
I want to read it one more time for the
people in the back. Self sacrifice is not a synonym
for kindness, And oftentimes we sacrifice ourselfs because we don't
(01:11):
want to disrupt anything. We don't want to hurt anybody's feelings,
we don't want to add waves, we don't want to
ruffle the feathers. So we just lean into whatever is
going to be easiest and more comfortable for everybody, which
can come across as kind. Well, actually it can be
neither kind nor unkind. Well, I was going to say,
I think that this is talking about the difference between
(01:33):
being nice and being kind, or being nice is doing
the polite thing, which a lot of times self sacrifice.
It's like the polite thing or the quote unquote typical
right thing to do or whatever, versus being kind. Is
more about honesty and if I really this isn't something
that's serving me, it's better, I think, to be honest
than be polite. Right, Thank you for clarifying, But you
(01:55):
can still be honest in a kind, kind way. Right,
It's not like saying being that's like saying boundaries are mean.
Boundaries aren't mean. Most of the time people that think
the boundary is mean, it's because they're affected by your boundary.
But if you're someone where boundaries are hard, like for me,
boundaries can send me into a panic attack because I
(02:16):
have not exercised my boundary muscle enough and you're still
operating out of a people pleasing place. And certain relationships,
it just depends, but it's uncomfortable for me. It is
daunting to think about in certain relationships. So oftentimes I
end up the martyr in a situation because I again
(02:38):
don't want to disrupt, so I'm willing to sacrifice my
truth and my happiness just to keep everybody and there's
someone else happy. And what happens is when we do that,
then we build resentment, and then that's not kind, right,
and you're all erupt like a volcano. Okay, So that
was the quote. Just a little thing on that, but
(03:01):
something to really think about. If that's resonating with you
right now, spend some time with it. Think about certain
relationships where you you know that could be happening, especially
if you know you have codependent tendencies. So now to
the email that I got, which is from Lisa, not
the Lisa that I co host out Way with Lisa Hame,
but just a listener named Lisa that was asking me
(03:25):
my thoughts on fake it till you Make It. She
was curious if I think that it does more harm
than good. And honestly, I've been guilty of saying that
because that's just an easy thing to say, and you
hear it all the time, and a lot of times
I don't know what I'm doing. I figure things out
as I go. So I feel like, you know, fake
it till you make it mortality. You're saying that like
it's you already decided that that's a bad thing. I
(03:46):
don't know if it's a bad thing, but I am
guilt I'm saying it. I don't think I've ever put
much thought into whether it could do more harm than good.
I guess I've thought it's a It's a saying that's
fairly innocent and kind of explains that there's been times
in my life where I've been figuring things out and
kind of faking my way through it till I have
(04:07):
it figured out. But then I realized a lot of
times you just never have it figured out. You just
keep going, which is okay. And I think that if
you think that everybody has someone, if you're looking up
to someone you think they have it all figured out,
they don't. So I am simply saying that I'm guilty
of being like fake it till you make it, And
I don't know if that is I'm I guess I'm
(04:29):
asking you your take on if that could actually be
harmful for someone to hear or lean into that statement
as like a mantra. I think it can be both
harmful and helpful, depending on how you're using it, who's
using it, all of the meaning behind it. I don't
think this is something that we can blanket say like
don't ever use it or don't ever say that. And
(04:51):
that's something that I've seen happening especially on like Instagram
and and people almost demonizing this phrase, where I think
it can be really helpful. Okay, I use this. It
speaks to this thing called behavioral activation, which is basically
faking it till you make it. It's doing a behavior
before the shift has happened in your thought process, and
(05:13):
by doing that behavior, the shift can and will happen
eventually in your thought process. A really easy example is movement. Walking.
Anything can be really really helpful to help people who
feel levels of depression. But somebody who's depressed is never
going to be like super super excited to go out
and go for a walk, right, So we use behavior
(05:34):
activation and we create behavior goals to get them to
go out and do it until they actually do get
excited to go in those walks because they learn that
that helps change the brain chemistry so in a way,
and that is them. It's like tell you they make it. Yeah,
it's like tell yourself you want to go until you
actually start wanting to go. But this also speaks to
like career stuff, Like you're saying, like if I waited
(05:56):
to feel confident in hosting a podcast to start a podcast, asked,
I would absolutely never, ever, ever ever do it because
I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know
if I was going to be good at it. I
didn't know if I was going to like it. But
I was like, Okay, I'm just gonna do it until
I do feel confident. Right. Do you feel confident now? Sometimes? Sometimes?
But you still have a yeah. And I think where
(06:17):
it's the ficket to make it. It's like we're put
we're projecting a false narrative of who we are. But
I also don't show up as a person who thinks
that I have to be perfect to be up here. Yeah,
And I think that's a that's a good reminder that
you guess you don't have to know about everything before
you go all in. Like if you feel the urge
to go do something, or you're passionate about something that
(06:38):
you it's exciting you, it's stirring something up in you. Yeah,
I wouldn't wait till you know every single thing about it.
So it's what is the ficket two you make it?
What is it meaning to you? What's that message? Because
this could speak to like confidence and self esteem of
if we wait to change what we think about ourselves
before we go and do things we want to do
(06:59):
with our lives, that's gonna never ever happen because our
stories changed not just with information, they change with experience.
We are matching information that we're learning awareness with experiences
that we're having to change the belief system inside of
our bodies, inside of our brains. So we have to
have action. I saw a headline the other day that
(07:26):
said something like eight percent of people suffer from low
self esteem. I believe that. Yeah, I couldn't decide if
that was like really high or but also like what's
the degree of their low self esteem? Because I, in
certain moments I might have low self esteem, but what's
the degree of it was just a headline and I'm
just pulling it up because I well, I mean, I
guess I could search it up real quick to try
to find it. But I mean I think that, Yeah,
(07:48):
you're right, any given day I might wake up and
have low self esteem that day, But do I have
it every single day? And is it okay for you
to have like some ick feelings and do it anyway.
That's the thing of like, i might be feeling a
little self conscious today, but I'm going to go out
and do this thing anyway rather than wait until I
changed my mind. Okay, So is that an example of
(08:10):
behavioral activation on your self esteem? So it's changing the
behavior so I can change my thought process. So whenever
I'm about to go speak, I'm thinking of a time
in particular where I was invited to New York to
speak on a panel and our CEO of my Heart
was there and all of these other way bigger than
(08:31):
me in my mind type people where I did not
feel worthy to be up there. In fact, I kept
asking myself like who got sick or dropped out last minute?
To where I then was called and invited to be
on this panel and I just did. I was nervous,
did not feel equipped to be up there. But I
had to change the narrative in my head before I
(08:54):
walked out on stage, because I didn't want that to
be the energy I was putting out there. I had
to tell myself, you deserve to be here. They invited
you for a reason, and they want to hear what
you have to say. But I mean, there was questions
that were just thrown out, like I know what was coming,
and I thought, I'm going to sound So I'm next
to some girl that's on I don't know, some news
(09:17):
channel that she's just she's speaks on TV for a living,
and I'm like, I do the Bobby Bone Show, so
I mean, which is fine. But we're you know, playing
you know, easy trivia and you know, telling stories from
our life. And she's someone from the news reporting on
the news and can handle serious questions. And I feel
(09:37):
like we were there and it was a sort of
serious topic. And but I do feel like, Okay, well
that's her lane, and I've got my lane and I
can offer a different perspective. So I just started to
own my lane, and I psyched myself up not out.
I gave myself that confidence boost internally that I needed
to take the stage and deliver my answers with confidence.
(10:00):
And I believed in myself. And that is an example
of me faking it till I made it. And what
is it behavior? Because you're not saying I have to
wait until I believe this. You're you're giving when you're
psyching yourself up, you're saying, I'm I'm good enough. They
asked me to be on here for a reason. You
might not fully percent believe those things. You might still
(10:21):
have questions about them, right because I, yes, I had
low self esteem going into it by having the narrative
that surely me getting invited was an acted or surely
they wanted so and so, but that person couldn't show up,
so they invited me. I had multiple stories and lies
in my head. But then when I switched it, And
(10:43):
then also I was intentional about doing things that work
in my favor, which these are things that make me
feel good. They may not work for you. But I
made sure I had enough time to get to New
York and have time to be in my hotel room
and do my hair the way I want to, and
have makeup, and I wore a suit that made me
feel super confident. I called it kind of like a
(11:03):
power suit situation. But things like that, those are things
I know that I can do on the front side
that are going to help send me into that more confident.
I mean, I just think there's things we can do
to help set ourselves up for success. They may vary
depending on who you are. Of things rituals, or things
you need to do before you enter an environment. What
(11:25):
can you do to set yourself up for that success?
If there's behavior activation, can you also do other these
like little side activation hoping mechanisms? Is it? Because yeah,
for me, it's something that makes me feel more comfortable.
Like if I feel trolling, what you can control? There
you go. So I know these things. I'm really confident
about these things. I love my outfit and I think
it looks good. I like whatever I feel calm doing
(11:45):
a breathing exercise. I like to get places with time
so I don't feel rushed. Yes to calm my anxiety.
And I get trolling what you can control? Well, And
you know it's New York. What if I get stuck
in some crazy traffic and then I'm late and I'm rushed?
But thankfully I was all to control those things. And
so you may not be speaking on a stage in
New York, But what little things in your life can
(12:06):
you do to set yourself up? If you are feeling
low about something or having low self esteem about X
y Z in your life, what are things you can
do to take back some of that control and give
you that confidence boost that you need. What do you
need to help you actually do the behavior that's scaring
you or you don't think that you can or should.
(12:29):
For me, the suit helped, yeah, and quite And then
I think I looked at myself in the mirror before
I left my hotel room and I was like, you
got this, you can do this. You deserve to be here,
and I went on my way. Like, if we go
back to the walking example, maybe you really do not
want to go on this walk and you don't think
it's going to help, but you bought these really cool
nikes and you're really excited to wear them, so okay,
(12:50):
that's going to get you out the door. Go for it,
and then eventually you'll be more excited about the walk
than the shoes. I like that example, but I think
it goes back to really understanding like what you're when
you're saying fake it till I make it, you're saying
I can do this, I can go and do this
interview before I feel fully fully confident to be on
this stage. And it's by telling yourself certain things and
(13:13):
then going and having experience that helps give you evidence
so you can start to believe that. This is kind
of speaking a lot about like cognitive behavioral therapy, which
talks about how your thoughts and your behaviors and your
beliefs are all connected. That's what this is. So in
a nutshell, depending on how you're using fake it till
you make it, it's not harmful. Okay, it can be both.
(13:34):
I'm just answering Lisa's question about it because and yeah,
I don't know why I said in the beginning that
I was guilty of using it, but yeah, I started
to think, like, I don't know it was harmful. I
don't want to be harpful. It could be harmful if
like you feel like maybe your boss or somebody is like,
I don't care that you don't feel confident. Just fake
it till you make it, go out and do it.
And it's like in this like suck it up. Mode
versus we're using it as a tool to help us
(13:56):
get what we want. There's a difference between like, suck
it up and hey, be kind to yourself. You don't
have to be fully confident and know that you're going
to succeed in this to try it. Love it well.
Thank you Cat for you're welcome joining in on this
email that we address. Thank you Lisa for sending it in.
Y'all can send me emails for the fifth Thing, just
(14:16):
four Things with Amy Brown at gmail dot com. And
if you have noticed, Cat was here last week and
she's here again this week, so I guess we can
let people know that you're basically going to start joining
me every Tuesday. We don't have an official name yet.
We might not call it the Fifth Thing anymore, not
quite sure, but it will be emails that you're sending
(14:38):
in or topics that maybe are related to the four
Things podcasts that Cat and I dive deeper into and
I get her expert opinion being a licensed therapist, because
I feel like I do get emails from you guys
that are asking all kinds of questions, and some of
them get really deep and I don't feel equipped to
address them. But I feel more comfortable having Cat on
(15:00):
my side for this for certain emails, and maybe not
this fake it til you make it one. But if
I get a really serious email, which I do get,
and I would want to offer that support because again
I don't want people to feel alone, and I would
love to share the email, but I'm not going to
fake it till I make that. Well, what you're practicing
is staying in your lane, which is very important and
helpful I think right now, because anybody can say anything
(15:22):
on the internet these days and send it to a
mass amount of people. Yes, and I love that people
feel connected and they want to send me personal emails
and they want my advice. But some things I'm just like,
I am not qualified to give this. I mean, I
have certain life experience and I maybe have my opinion,
but I don't know if it's going to be helpful
or harmful, and I just want to Yes, I want
(15:43):
to stay in my lane. But this is also a
community where I'm thankful people feel safe to email in
certain things and I'm like, wow, that's heavy stuff or
that's a lot, and I just feel more comfortable having
Cat here to address those things. So that being said,
send in your emails. We're going to talk about all
kinds of things and this the cat and amy chat
(16:05):
amy and cat chat amy and cat chat amy, catchy
cat chit chat. If anybody else has some names, just
let me know. But this will be for the foreseeable
future what we're doing on Tuesday episodes, and then I'll
have other friends join me on the Thursday episodes, like
Mary used to or has joined me on the Fifth Thing,
or my sister or Chase from time to time, but
(16:27):
we'll just weave them into the Thursday four Things episodes.
So that's just a little update on that. In case
you've listened to this far, and make sure you're following
Cat on Instagram. She's cat dot the FATA K A
T period d E f A T T A and
then she also has a podcast called You Need Therapy.
(16:49):
I suggest you subscribe to that, follow rate review, do
all the things, but if you haven't done that for
my podcast yet, don't do it for hers, do over
my first time, and then do over my I hope
you'll have a great day and I will see you
all on Thursday. My guest will be Mallory Irvin. She
has a huge following on Instagram, so you may know
her there. But she was on two Seasons of Amazing Race.
(17:10):
She was Miss Kentucky. I think she competed in Miss America.
But she's putting out a book. It's called Living Fully
Dare to step into your most vibrant life. So we're
gonna be breaking down her book, and I hope you'll
join us for that conversation. All right, see then bye bye,
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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