Pros and Cons of Fake-it-til-you-make-it

For many years I have been interested by the idea of fake-it-til-you-make-it. I get hung up on binary moral questions, so perhaps it has caught my attention because I’m wondering “is it good or bad to fake-it-til-you-make-it?” Faking is usually bad . . . but smiling and having good actions is usually good. Of course, when and how this particular catch phrase should be applied is nuanced, and I thought it would be worth my time to dive in.

For succinctness, we'll say fityomi (fake it til you make it).

An example of an extreme (though unfortunately not uncommon) adherence to fityomi would be never talking about your stresses, not even with God, because you hope that by pretending things are good they’ll be good. When I was on a mission to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in Guatemala, I had an experience that helped me learn to be open with God, including sharing my negative feelings. We had something called a zone conference, where our mission president gave us instruction and encouragement. At one particular zone conference early in my mission, he encouraged us to stop every family we passed to share the gospel with them. That felt very overwhelming to me, because we passed a lot of families, and had a lot of places to go. He also laughed about another piece of advice that was given at the conference, advice to avoid stress to help our health. He commented that life is stress, or something along those lines. That evening, one of the families that my companion and I stopped was the Piche family; we got their address, and I’ll share more about them later. 

That night as I prayed, I openly shared with the Lord that I felt stressed. It was somewhat out of character for me. I had given thanks, and prayed for help in my duties, and for comfort, and for forgiveness, for something. This time I just shared my current real feelings. I felt enveloped in love, and like things would be okay.

Visiting the Piche family with my family

We ended up teaching the Piche family, and I have returned to Guatemala twice to stay with them, and to this day they are some of my best friends. Relevant to this article, I needed the stressful encouragement from my mission president to stop more families, because I would very likely not have stopped them without that encouragement, and I was not mature enough to take that encouragement without it being stressful. But that does not mean that I needed to endure my feelings alone. The Lord was more than willing to comfort me, meet me where I was, and lead me along.

That experience and others, especially with sharing concerns with my wife and receiving her support and comfort, lead me to believe that fityomi is bad insofar as it stops us from sharing openly and receiving support from those who are close to us.

All of that said, while writing this article my overall conclusion is that a little more fityomi would actually be good for me. I vigorously tried it one night when my wife and I were having some tension. We were on the verge of a downward spiral of both feeling misunderstood. I think my normal response to the situation would have led to many tears from my wife and frustrated or guilty feelings by me, with a potential make-up talk happening long after I wish I was in bed. Instead, I acted happy, kind, and non-defensive, the opposite of what I was feeling, and the feelings quickly lined up with my behavior so that we could have some pleasant time together and a reasonable bedtime.

Do we sometimes learn from experiences of both sharing negative feelings, eventually arriving at more understanding of each other, and rejoicing in having overcome the negative experience? Yes, but sometimes what we learn is to act in a way that avoids a repeat of the same experience, perhaps by temporarily discounting our negative feelings. So, when negative feelings are hot and I think to myself “things like this will never stop if I don’t let her know how I’m feeling right now,” I can recall that speaking in anger has not been the best option in the past, and that a little fityomi can get me to a better point.

Outside of marriage, fityomi comes more naturally, since I have my guard up more with those I’m less close to. Having my guard up has pros and cons. I’m less likely to give destructive criticism to somebody, but I might lose the opportunity to grow close to others. Fityomi might need to be reduced to allow me to share what is hard for me, being vulnerable, to promote a relationship where each person can help the other with struggles. Fityomi might need to be increased to prevent me from, for example, always acting in accordance with the rushed feelings that I often have at work. Asking a thoughtful question to a coworker, even when I’d rather be getting a to-do done in my office, helps with our long-term working and personal relationship. 

With my children, my default feelings tend to be a little lower energy than is ideal, so a little fityomi can help me get out of a sleepy slump and start enjoying some precious playtime with them. Every once in a while, however, if sick or extremely exhausted, I find that sharing sincere affection and then requesting a lower-energy activity like reading a book or crawling on a couch-laying daddy is acceptable to them.

I sometimes cringe from acting more positive than I'm feeling. I know certain people who I admire but of whom I've witnessed brief moments of off-putting forced or strained kindness. But perhaps their habit of seeking to be kind has led them to be the generally admirable and sincerely kind people they are. Certainly, occasional shortfalls in ourselves or others shouldn't stop us from trying to act better than we're feeling.

I believe that fityomi can be one way of exercising faith in Jesus Christ, not just faith in myself, and repenting. It acknowledges that my current feelings are not as important as my ongoing commitment to follow Jesus Christ, and my belief that He can change me from who I currently am into somebody more like Him. Jesus overcame temptation, doing what was right even when there were reasons to be more harsh or unresponsive. I don't know what He felt, but I believe thinking of Him and acting like Him will help me have feelings more like His, feelings of love, compassion, and an eventual fullness of joy. 

Like other helpful principles, fityomi is better when not taken to an extreme. These two scriptures from The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ help show the balance. The first is about overcoming some of our natural tendencies, and the second is about recognizing our current level of strength as we set our pace. 

“[T]he natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19).

“And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.” (Mosiah 4:27).

Over time, I believe our commitment to follow Jesus Christ will transform us into authentically kind people, true friends with Jesus Christ and each other.