“Acting As If”: Use this Psychological Technique to Feel Better Faster

If you are working on changing a behavior, try this technique. Hi, my name is Rachel Havocost. I am a writer and mental health advocate. I've been in therapy for 19 years for my own mental health, and I have a master's in psychology. And everything I share online is in service of helping one person feel less alone. So today I want to talk about a really amazing psychological tool called acting as if. And it's all about behaving or taking action before we're ready. So let's say we're trying to change a behavior.

Let's say I'm working on my social anxiety, and I have a goal to feel less anxious in social scenarios. It might feel counterintuitive for me to put myself in social scenarios before I'm less anxious. And it can be a really powerful way for us to facilitate the change that we're looking for. So here's how it works. We think about the behavior that we want. Let's say what I want is to be confident and social and be able to have conversations and social scenarios. I would ask myself, and sometimes I make a list, what does someone who has these behaviors or these personality traits act like?

What are things that they do when this kind of person walks into a room? How do they hold themselves? How do they stand? How do they move? What is their facial expression? And I write this all out. What kinds of things might they say? What kinds of things might they talk about? How would they introduce themselves? I write this all out, and then I act as if I am already that person. So it's almost like an exercise in acting because it feels like taking on a new role. And in some ways, this allows us to experience physically and somatically what it's like to act as if we were the way that we want to be.

And it won't feel aligned or integrated right away. And it takes time, and it takes practice. And the more we embody these roles, so to speak, the more familiar they become, until they start to sort of feel like us. Let me know if you have questions about this or if you want me to give specific examples. This has been a really powerful tool for me as I go through therapy and recovery, and I hope that it is helpful for you, too. See you next time.