How to Fake it till you make it!

The 5 step Actor Reframe method

If eyes were a window to the soul, it would be easier to judge people just by looking into their eyes. But often you find yourself fooled by gaze, you trust people who are not worthy of it and find out later they did not have your best interest in mind.

your lookers are the window to your mindset

I was watching a series called ‘Sare Jahan se acha’ when this realization struck me like a lighting bolt. A scene where a senior official is rebuking his junior subordinate. A lot is said with the eyes. If you watch the clip minus the sound, you can still very well tell who the boss is and who is the one supposed to obey orders.

Guess who the boss is… (answer at the end)

The actors in that scene may be friends outside the set, equals. But on screen they play a hierarchy, their eyes being the primary instrument.

They don’t contort their ‘souls’ to fit into these characters. They change their mindset, their perspective to play their part. In that moment they BELIEVE their place in the script, in the story.

The actor playing the boss believes he is the boss and the actor playing the subordinate believes he is a subordinate for that duration. And that shows in their eyes, thus for their eyes, they are believable.

Why should you care?

This applies if you are under-confident and want to be confident.

Actors know how to do this and now you do too.

I call it this 5 step method the ‘Actor Reframe method’

STEP 1. Identify the area where you are under confident, and want to be more confident in.

STEP 2. Imagine a person who is actually confident in that area.

STEP 3. How do they think? How do they feel? What is their worldview?

STEP 4. Adopt that worldview.

STEP 5. Act accordingly.

Ex: You are meeting somebody you don’t like or someone who doesn’t like you. But it is a mandatory meeting. Unavoidable. You also want to make sure you are a good time since your are anyway investing that much time to meet them. You can’t waste that hour in trying to drag it and get it over it. What do you do? You follow step 2. You adopt the mindset of someone who likes this person. If you liked them, how would you talk, how would your gaze soften, what would your body language be like.

Wear that costume.

Do it enough no. of times and you just might make the meetings fruitful or end up truly liking them :P

Or at least make those meetings survivable :)

You might highly benefit from a positive feedback loop: How you think affects how you behave that affects how people respond to you and that in turn affects how you feel!

The ‘Actor Reframe method’ is a way of training yourself to show up as the desired version of yourself in a myriad of different situations!

(The answer to who is the boss quiz at the top is the guy on top, ofc)

Next time your feelings betray you, don’t collapse, rise. Use the ACTOR REFRAME METHOD, step 1 to 5, and embody the version of yourself that wins.

Yours,

Ipsita