Feeling like a fraud, faking our way in life, I consider normal protocol. Education, confidence, and action prepares us to take on the unknowns of life.”Fake it ’til you make it” is the path for the majority, insecurity put on the back burner, forging into unknown territory, jumping stepping stone to stepping stone until able to function with confidence, fortitude, and experience. My seventy-two year-old father-in-law has reinvented his career approximately every five years. When asked about his experiences, he noted, “I’ve never taken a job that I knew how to do.” Finding, figuring, and perfecting a new career is similar to any transformation in life. Until arriving comfortably, there is a holding pattern awaiting safe landing into the position. From temporary imposter to confident expert requires patience, action, and drive.
Although I have impostered as a teacher, entrepreneur, writer, film series host, president of a non-profit organization, and mother, there has been nothing more profound than becoming a bogus, thin, muscle-wielding woman. Impostering skinny women typically I reverted back to the overweight, uncomfortable–in–my–skin little girl, fat and afraid to expose her true self to the world. Becoming the imposter, you must believe yourself worthy, accept the role wholeheartedly, and be the individual of that choice, faking it until it is secondhand. Without the belief, the position is temporary. As a temporary thin woman, the lack of worth portion was my nemesis. That is, until now.
Suddenly, I am playing the role of a thin woman again, recognizing her practices, experiencing her body, and claimed self-worth to meet the requirement. I am that woman, and proclaim to remain forever as she. Learning her cues, as eating real food, strengthening by boot camp classes and weight-bearing activities, and allowing myself to be the woman who respects her body with what she feeds it, I am the thin, confident, worthy woman I impostered. Becoming that which I desired is a process of fraudulent beginnings. Imitation to start, but a genuine marathon race to the finish line, I medaled in impostering, winning the gold for becoming who I was meant to be. When the dots are connected, following a path of those that ventured before, I became my intended. Imposter at first, but the woman I am today.