When To Fake It Til You Make It In Your Relationship

Hi, I'm Karyn You're couples therapist and relationship coach with A Better Relationship Coaching, and today I want to talk about why you should fake it till you make it. Yes, I want you to fake it sometimes in your relationship. And let me explain what I'm talking about.

A lot of times, working with couples that are learning something new, trying new skills, new behaviors, and it can feel weird or awkward. You're just not feeling it. You want to, but it just doesn't come naturally and it just feels like really different. Not something that you would do normally. Which, by the way, that's a good thing, right? We want you to do something different. We want you to learn new things and do different things.  But in the beginning, it can feel awkward and weird and just not natural for you. And those are the times that I want you to fake it till you make it.

I'm really actually a huge fan of this. I've used this technique, if we're going to call it that, to help me in many different situations. Kind of pretending that you feel more comfortable doing something than you actually do is how I would describe it.

So when we're implementing this tool or technique, a couple of things. It can really actually help you feel more confident trying something if you pretend to feel more comfortable doing something or trying something out.  Eventually that feeling of comfort can become more genuine and natural. And one way to help you do this is to imagine yourself doing whatever the thing is. So if you're wanting to be practicing a new skill or to be handling a situation differently than you normally would, or even doing something nice for your partner, you're trying to get in a habit or routine of, you know, making those nice gestures for your partner. Imagine how you would like that situation to go before you do it. So you can just run the whole imaginary scenario in your head with your heart being how you would like it to go. And then when you are actually doing it, you know, fake it till you make it. That version of what you imagined. Not everybody needs to do that, but it can actually be really helpful.

And so that's really what I'm talking about is, when you're wanting to do something differently, you kind of know how it looks on paper, but it just feels weird in practice. Fake it till you make it.

What I don't want you to do is to be doing or saying something that you really do not want to be doing. Right?  I don't want you to lie or make stuff up. This is actually just really a tool that you can use to help you get over that hump of, how do I even do this? What's it going to be like? It feels weird. Remember-- weird,  different is good- that's what we're going for. And until you feel more comfortable doing it, but you definitely want to be doing it. Use this tool of fake it till you make it.

All right. That is it for today. Short and sweet. I hope this was helpful for you. And till next time, take care of yourself and take care of your partner. Thanks.