Fakin' It? Not Really Makin' It?

As I was driving along the Malibu coast Paul Simon's "Fakin' It" blared through the radio. I had the volume cranked because I had the top down and was singing loudly and badly along with the song. It's such fun to let go and sing, especially if the sound of your voice could turn wine into vinegar, but I digress.

When I screeched the verse:

"I've just been fakin' it,
I'm not really makin' it.
This feeling of fakin' it-
I still haven't shaken it."

It occurred to me that "this feeling of fakin' it" was a running theme among my clients in the entertainment industry. Many of the people who come to me believe, at their deepest core, that it's only a matter of time before the people who can make or break careers will discover that the artist or executive hired is not really talented, smart, good, pretty, young, passionate, thin, whatever enough. Even someone who has climbed up several rungs on their ladder of success can still feel like he or she is still just fakin' it, not really makin' it.

Often people are told by well-meaning yet misguided advisers to 'fake it until you make it'. The trouble is, you can't fake it. Your Higher Being (what I playfully call the Wizard Within) will know you are faking. Faking it is the realm of that other part of you, the voice of your self-doubt, your Inner Critic. This part of you that wants to keep you small to be safe will serve up messages of fear and admonition to hold you back.

There is a clear distinction between merely faking something and believing in your potential. If you show up in your craft, and in your life, faking it you give your power, your personal strength and courage, over to your Inner Critic who will lie and tell you that you really aren't good enough to want what you want, be who you want to be, do what you want to do. Know this, if your heart passionately calls you to pursue a dream it does so because this is who you are and what you are meant to do. By this very definition, you are talented, good, smart, whatever enough to reach your goal, achieve your dream. Unless you get in your own way by listening to that misguided Inner Critic.

Instead, return your power over to your Higher Being and hold the presence of a person fully in touch with their potential and allow yourself to boldly pursue your creative endeavors. Imagine yourself as having already reached your goal, and beyond, and hold all the feelings associated with what that experience will deliver. Stay present with those feelings as you express yourself in every aspect of your life each and every day. Before you know it, what you imagine has turned into reality. You have to see it in order to believe it. You have to believe it in order to be it. It's that simple.

Even if you fall flat on your face a time or two you will move closer to realizing your dream in the lesson that can be learned by that experience.

It must have been an oldies sweep because the next song played was "Brass In Pocket" by The Pretenders, Chrissie Hynde and James Honeyman-Scott. Oh, yeah!

"Got brass in pocket
Got bottle I'm gonna use it
Intention I feel inventive
Gonna make you, make you, make you notice

'cause I gonna make you see
There's nobody else here
No one like me
I'm special so special
I gotta have some of your attention give it to me"