Just Be Honest - What I Wish I Knew #3

When I first started freelancing, I threw around the phrase, “fake it til you make it” a lot. 

I wish I had just been honest instead. 

There’s nothing wrong with faking confidence. Progress is impossible without challenging new things. When you’re faced with a new thing, confidence isn’t a given. You’ll have to fake confidence until it finally catches up. 

There is something wrong with faking knowledge. In the early days of freelancing, I was learning a lot. When someone asked me to do something for them, I would almost always say yes, faking knowledge until I had time to learn. I had learned a lot already, I could probably learn something else, right I figured if I really couldn’t figure it out, I could find someone else and outsource the work. This wasn’t always the case. 

I wish I had the guts to be more honest by saying something like, “I’ve personally never done this before, but I’m very confident in my ability to learn.” 

In his book To Sell Is Human, Daniel Pink describes a study that showed increased buyer confidence when one negative fact about the product was presented. It made the product feel more real. 

When I faked knowledge, hoping I could make it later, not only did I decrease my chances of making the sale, I set myself up for failure due to high expectations. 

There’s nothing wrong with faking confidence in things you’ve done before. But if you haven’t done something before, there’s also nothing wrong with being honest about it. 

The long-term version of you will be grateful you did.