Fake it ’til you make it?

by Carrie Robinson | Dec 10, 2020 | Thoughts & Things

We’re throwin’ back for this one ? Yup – this is me, circa 2007 doing my first ever photoshoot! You’ll get why I dug this little gem of a pic up soon, so please read on! Carrie xo

Fake it ’til you make it!

I find no matter who I talk to there is either a view of ‘Yes! Absolutely!’ or, ‘No! You should never fake it!’ ??‍♀️

We all know that what appears on the outside is rarely the same as what’s going on, on the inside.

Social Media has compounded this incredibly. Always showing the happy moments. Curating content for business and personal brands that show the blooming garden, but not the past planting of the seeds. Never the bump in the road but the victories in the end.

So are they faking it til they make it?

This may lead you to think that ‘faking it’ is always negative or done with deceptive intentions, and while I’m sure this may be the case for some, there is an entire other motivation to consider.

The motivation of growth ?

Growth can only happen when:

You are open to it
You know where you want to end up
You commit to the process

‘Fake it ’til you make it’ actually changed my life. Not joking!

Let me explain why this is actually a positive in my life and how utilizing it allowed me to have the growth that I desired.

I love being a Mom ? I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Staying home with them when they were young was a priviledge, and I am aware a lot of people don’t have that option. I balanced doing services for friends and family, working during naps ? , after they went down for the night, feeding in the middle of a haircut ?, you name it, I did it to try and balance things ?

The problem? I wanted more for my career. Waaaaay more.

I had dreams. BIG dreams, but they seemed so far off. So far in fact that they were just dreams. No timeline, no plan, just those ‘someday’ type of dreams ?

And then one day, I had a huge wake up moment about those dreams.

It was 2005 ish, a day like any other, balancing the Mom life and work life. For whatever reason (thank you universe ? ), something just clicked.

Dressed in jogging pants and a t-shirt, I greeted my client at the front door of my house and we walked down to my hair room in the basement. I slid my clogs on while my client was taking a seat, and realized there was a giant spit up stain on my joggers.

It’s Mom life, I get it, but after I finished that client and walked him out the door, I realized that if I wanted those dreams I thought about all the time, I HAD to start showing up every single day as the person I wanted to become ? ? ? ?

And so I did.

I started living the ‘fake it ’til I make it’ life ??

I changed the way I dressed. Why? Because my dream me didn’t show up everyday in jogging pants with spit up on them, however comfortable they may be.

I changed my work environment. I created the best professional version of where dream me would work, in the room I currently had available.

I educated myself in the way that dream me would do everyday.

I connected with people, like dream me would confidently do, and found mentors already doing the things that I wanted to do. I soaked up every bit of knowledge from them that I could.

I faked the shit out of my life.

And guess what happened?

I got more referrals. Clients started responding to me differently. The confidence I showed on the outside was being built brick by brick on the inside.

I started living the way I would if I had already attained my goals.

And guess what happened then?

I attained them!

Fake it ’til you make it doesn’t have to be dishonest. I never lied to people, I was always honest in my skillset and what I was capable of. I just lived my life as the person I wanted to become. I made choices the way ‘she’ would make them. I dressed, acted, reacted and accepted responsibility for my life like ‘she’ would.

It was the best (and one of the most difficult) things I ever did, which leads us to today.

I’m still doing it. Every.Single.Day ?

It’s not immediate. It’s not a quick fix. It takes time and effort and determination, but in the end (and even in the process) it is SO rewarding.

That picture of me I said we’d wind back to? That was me, two years after I decided my future self did not show up in jogging pants with spit up on them.

That was me, doing the things I had dreamed of doing before (like a photoshoot), and already working to put even bigger dreams in motion, because that’s exactly what ‘she’ would do.

Just try it. You never know what can happen! But if you decide to try, do yourself a favour and COMMIT. Even on the hard days. Even on the days you don’t think you are making progress. Just keep on doing it.

Be the person you want to become and most importantly, enjoy the ride that gets you there.

You can be anything you want to be ?

Thanks for listening,

Carrie

www.cihairstudio.ca

“If You Aren’t Growing, you’re Dying”

by Carrie Robinson | Apr 8, 2020 | Thoughts & Things

There’s this saying in business:

“If you aren’t growing, you’re dying.”

It’s something I’ve always been conscious about but have also learned relates to so much more than just business.

It is an essential element of achieving pretty much anything we aspire to.

We are taught to go to school Monday through Friday for our entire childhood and teen years. Once we’ve chosen our career we’re to go to school some more. A few more months or years of the learning process. We are essentially, year after year, forced to grow.

We are challenged mentally, emotionally and even physically (late nights studying, early mornings at a part time job to pay off the full time education).

And then it stops. No more school. We are finally ready to adult!

We start working in our career with the illusion that we’ve learned it all.

Depending on your chosen career you may literally have learned it all but for most I’d say there is always something else to learn.

It’s different now though. You’re adulting. You’re responsible for your committment, for holding yourself accountable. There is no Teacher, no one to hold your hand and force you to sit for 6 hours a day until you get it.

Your advancement, or lack there of, is entirely within your control. An idea so exhillirating you can’t wait to make it happen! Adulting for the win!

You know what you have to learn. You know how to do it, you’ve seen it done, and lots of others around you have accomplished it so there’s no way you won’t get it!

And yet, no matter how hard you try, you are unable to make progress. You try and try and still no progress. Frustration is rampant, lack of confidence is finding its way into your mind and what once seemed so easy is now close to impossible.

Remember the saying? “If you aren’t growing, you’re dying.”

I’ve definitely experienced this myself. I’ve also seen it happen to Stylists at countless stages in the learning process and unfortunatley, sometimes the hurdle proves too difficult to overcome.

We all get caught up on the skill itself, not paying attention to what we are thinking or saying to ourselves about our progress. We fail to recognize things that have become habits, even ones that may be working against our efforts.

Growing is about more than the skills.

People stop growing, or fail to progress because the pain of not having ‘X’ (insert whatever you really want here) just isn’t great enough.

Relax – its not my intent to offend – its just the honest truth. I’ve personally experienced it many times. When you desperately want something how much are you willing to change to get it?

Enough to get completely out of your comfort zone and change your habits? Enough to grow your mindset by working through some incredibly tough limiting beliefs? Enough to ask for help? How far out of your comfort zone are you really willing to get?

Just like in business, if you aren’t growing by working on your mindset and beliefs, there is no progression.

In my very small corner of the world I’ve actually never seen someone acheive what they so desperatley wanted, without having to do the inner work first. As soon as the inner work happens, things magically change.

Great leaders and visionairies, the people we look up to that can seem to do no wrong. Those that come by their skills naturally and climb both professional and social ladders with ease? These people work twice as hard on their mindset and habits as they do on the skills in their career.

They are badasses at personal growth.

They push out of their comfort zones and recognize quickly and easily when they are holding themselves back.

The most interesting thing about this is that people who are stuck, coming up against the same obstacle time and time again, aren’t even aware of needing to invest in their personal growth. What they do know is that life is hard and no matter how much they try, they just aren’t making the progress they desire. It is always because an entire list of excuses for why what they did didn’t work.

We don’t know, what we don’t know.

The change of habits and pursuit of personal growth can be modeled. It can be discussed, suggested, even taught, but until the pain of a situation is too great to bare, nothing will happen.

Sometimes people choose not to grow personally. The choice is to take the easy route, bypass personal growth and simply pick up the same cycle in a new place, with new people and expect a different end result. It becomes an everlasting pursuit to find where it will get easier.

Stop searching. Start looking inside.

You have the ability to do whatever you dream of. I know its not easy, but it will be the biggest gift you ever give yourself.

Just look inside.