Why “Fake It Till You Make It” Doesn’t Work (And What Your Soul is Actually Craving)

The Lie Wrapped in Empowerment

“Fake it till you make it.”
It’s one of those phrases that’s been repeated so often, it almost sounds like truth.
A confidence hack.
A survival strategy.
A supposed stepping stone to success.

But here’s the problem: it’s hollow. And it’s hurting more than it’s helping.

Faking It = Abandoning Yourself

Because when you’re faking it—smiling through the ache, posturing confidence while your body trembles inside, pretending to have it all together—you’re not moving closer to who you really are.

You’re moving further away.

You’re abandoning your truth in service of an image.
You’re layering performance over pain, hope over hurt, and you’re calling it progress.
But it’s not progress. It’s disconnection.

The Hidden Cost of Pretending

“Fake it till you make it” might get you in the door, but it won’t keep you there with integrity.
It won’t help you sleep at night.
It won’t hold you when the world gets quiet and you’re alone with yourself, still wondering if you’re enough.

Because here’s the thing no one tells you: you can’t fake your way to self-worth.
You can’t posture your way into presence.
You can’t perform your way into feeling safe in your body, aligned in your soul, and alive in your life.

What You Sacrifice in the Process

Every time you fake confidence, you bypass the sacred opportunity to heal the root of your self-doubt.
Every time you fake ease, you override your body’s wisdom that’s begging you to slow down and feel.
Every time you pretend to be something you’re not, you tell your inner child: “Who you are isn’t good enough.”

And that message runs deep.
Until one day, it breaks you.

The World Doesn’t Need Your Performance. It Needs Your Presence.

What the world actually needs from you isn’t polish, perfection, or performance.
It needs presence.
It needs your full, radiant, raw-hearted aliveness.
Not a curated version of you, but the messy, magnificent truth of you.

The New Way: Feel It Till You Free It

So what if instead of faking it, you felt it?

What if you let yourself feel the wobble, the grief, the shakiness—and trusted that your capacity to be with those emotions was actually a deeper strength than pretending you didn’t have them?

What if you healed it instead of hiding it?

What if you believed that being real is more powerful than being impressive?

You Don’t Need Another Mask—You Need a Mirror

Because you don’t need another mask.
You need a mirror.

You need the spaces where you can exhale.
Where you can say: “This is where I’m at. This is what’s true. And I’m still worthy of love, belonging, and being seen.”

This Isn’t About “Making It.” It’s About Becoming

So I invite you—gently, fiercely, with love—to stop faking it.
To stop abandoning yourself for the illusion of “making it.”

And instead…

Feel it till you free it.

Heal it till you believe it.

Live it till you embody it.

The version of you that’s still faking it isn’t wrong or bad—she’s just tired.
She’s ready for truth. For tenderness. For a new way.

The way of deep embodiment.
Of choosing your wholeness over your hustle.
Of walking toward your becoming—raw, real, radiant.

Not because you’ve “made it.”
But because you finally stopped running from who you truly are.

Kathryn.

www.kathrynmalek.com