I was taught from a young age that the ‘fake it ’til you make it’ mentality was the only way to become successful.
I was a manger in a retail store and every day my team and I would read out the ’10 steps to a sale’ to get us motivated to sell products and engage with customers for the day. This was a great tool to get us prepared for the day to come, help us remember that customers are the reason we were there and it set a really positive mindset at the start of the day.
But then came that time of the day where it was 3pm and it was crazy busy, I hadn’t been to lunch, the till wasn’t working and I had to stay in the shop to keep charge, serve customers and deal with staff issues. All I wanted was a 5-minute break. At this point in the day, my training of ‘fake it ’til you make it’ kicked in.
I pretended that I was ok to keep going. I made myself believe that I wasn’t hungry. I even forced myself to not feel tired! But I can tell you what happened to me at the end of every day, I was hungry and tired and mentally exhausted from pretending to feel something I didn’t feel. This lead to me waking up the following morning unhappy and not wanting to go to work. Then the cycle happened all over again. Would you want your days to consist of this never ending rollercoaster?
I know for a fact that I would not be here, in this job at RecruitWest if I still had the ‘fake it ’til you make it’ mentality. No one wants to pretend all the way through life. Being confident in the decisions you make at work and using your initiative will boost real confidence and will create the opportunities for success.
Success is about hard work, dedication, taking risks, focusing on what your good at and being completely honest with yourself. Because if you do all of these things, you won’t have to fake anything at all. Success will come naturally.
By La Toya Galea
Recruitment Assistant