How to Fake It When You’re Not Feeling Confident

Sometimes you feel like you’re in over your head. Perhaps you got a big promotion or are leading a new, high-profile initiative but you worry that you don’t have the right skills or experience to succeed. Are there strategies you can use to jolt your confidence? How do you “fake it ‘til you make it”? And are there risks to that approach? 

Do:

• Create goals based on making small, incremental improvements in your performance.
• Jolt your confidence with bold and expansive body language.
• Observe how your role models comport themselves in various professional situations. Seek ways to incorporate their strategies and tactics into your leadership repertoire.

Don’t:

• Beat yourself up for feeling like an imposter — feeling nervous about a professional challenge is natural.
• Be overly daunted or scared by the challenge at hand. Consider it an opportunity to do something new and different.
• Fake confidence if you have legitimate concerns that the challenge you’re being asked to take on is not feasible. If it’s too much, say so.

Adapted from How to Fake It When You’re Not Feeling Confident, By Rebecca Knight, and published in the Harvard Business Review, June 7, 2016.