As the New Year begins, if you’re already dreading breaking your resolutions, perhaps you need a different approach, an easier path toward becoming the person you want to be – act like you’ve already achieved it.Paul advises the community in Colossians 3: clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. In other words, if you want to be patient, put it on like a new set of clothes, act the part and you’ll become the character you pretend to be. Act patient and you’ll become patient. Act kind, and you’ll become kind. Don’t wait until you feel it to do it, do the deed and you’ll feel what you seek. Above all, Paul adds, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
What is love if not patience, kindness, and humility? Dress yourself in those things and not only will you love others, you’ll love yourself and your life.
Creativity guru Michael Michalko writes of the interconnection between attitude and behavior as a two way street with each forming the other.
Our attitudes influence our behavior, and this is true. Michelangelo believed he was the greatest artist in the world and could create masterpieces using any medium. His rivals persuaded Junius II to hire him to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, because they knew Michelangelo had rarely used color and had never painted in fresco. They were sure he would turn down the commission due to his inexperience. They planned to use his refusal as proof of his lack of talent. If he did accept it, they were convinced the result would be clownish and planned to use the result to point out his inadequacies to the art world.
Michelangelo accepted the commission. Because he had the attitude of a great artist his behavior followed. Going through the motions and practicing with colors and painting in fresco, endlessly, he became an expert in the technique. He executed the frescos in great discomfort, having to work with his face looking upwards, which impaired his sight so badly that he could not read save with his head turned backwards for months. By acting upon his belief that he could create anything, he created the masterpiece that established him as the artist of the age.
And it’s also true that our behavior influences our attitudes. The great surrealist artist Salvador Dali was described by his fellow students at the Madrid art academy as “morbidly” shy according to his biographer Ian Gibson. He had a great fear of blushing and his shame about being ashamed drove him into solitude. It was his uncle who gave him the sage advice to become an actor in his relations with the people around him. He instructed him to pretend he was an extrovert and to act like an extrovert with everyone including your closest companions. Dali did just that to disguise his mortification. Every day he went through the motions of being an extrovert and, eventually, he became celebrated as the most extroverted, fearless, uninhibited and gregarious personalities of his time. He became what he pretended to be.
The Greek philosopher Diogenes was once noticed begging from a statue. His friends were puzzled and alarmed at this behavior. Asked the reason for this pointless behavior, Diogenes replied, I am practicing the art of being rejected. By pretending to be rejected continually by the statue, Diogenes was beginning to understand the mind of a beggar. Every time we pretend to have an attitude and go through the motions, we trigger the emotions we create and strengthen the attitude we wish to cultivate.
Choosing your attitude to shape your behavior as well as practicing a behavior to shape your attitude is called praxis. Psychologist William James called Praxis the “as if” principle. If you wish to possess a quality or an emotion, act “as if” you already had it, let it get hold of you, and it will. If you want to be patient, act like you are, and you will be. If you want to be kind, act like you are, and you will be. If you want to be compassionate, act like you are, and you will be. Enact a virtue to become the virtue. Twelve Step groups call this, “Faking it until you make it.” If you want to not drink, act like you don’t. If you want to become sober, act like you already are. Fake it long enough, and you’ll become what you enact as long as becoming is your goal. If your hope is to simply hide your secrets, hoping others will think differently of you, then it’s not praxis. Jesus referred to many of the religious in his day as “hypocrites,” a term which came from the theater meaning “actors.” These religious people, mostly leaders, were not enacting to become, they were simply acting as if they were already, but Jesus knew better. However, Jesus challenge to love others is centered in praxis. Love your neighbors (which, for Jesus, was everyone) and love your enemies. If you keep choosing love in every situation with every person, then you will become loving. Fake it until you become it.
To read more from Michael Michalko click here: http://creativethinking.net
To read more about praxis go to: The Moment – there is no place like now
To read more on how your attitude shapes your behavior go to: The Psychology of Jesus
