Should you fake it until you make it?

Were you brought up to believe that lying is a very bad thing? 

I was.

Yet, as I get older, the list of people I have met who use lying to achieve their aims grows and grows. 

I’m not talking about your colleague who takes the credit for your work. Or the boss who refuses to admit the costly mistake was theirs. 

I mean those top performers who stand out even in a team full of winners. 

The kind of people who make delivering pitches look easy and managing a crisis a piece of cake. 

What I have found is these top performers lie consistently…to themselves. 

They practice what psychologists call ‘self-deception’.

They aren’t fantasists or narcissists but use positive thinking to tell themselves they are better at something than they actually are. 

This then gives them an edge. 

Having positive illusions is common in most people. But successful people have been proven by research to be more prone to these illusions. 

This kind of positive self-deception is called a ‘champion mindset’ and is used by the top coaches of the world’s elite athletes. 

Some might call this a ‘hack’. 

But the reason it is not a hack is that it only works if used alongside putting in the hard work, following a process, to improve whatever it is that you do. 

That way you won’t be found out for being over-confident as you try to ‘fake it until you make it’. 

Instead, you will be much more likely to reach your full potential.