Acting As If: Letting My Doing Shape My Becoming

Acting As If: Letting My Doing Shape My Becoming

This morning I reflected on a principle that goes all the way back to William James but feels more alive in my life right now than ever before. It is the as if principle. It is the simple but powerful idea that who I become tomorrow is shaped by how I choose to act today. Not how I feel. Not what I plan. How I act.

Richard Wiseman wrote an entire book on this and the research is stunning. Your actions lead your feelings. Your behaviors lead your identity. Simple actions can shift your emotional state and redirect the course of your day. Something as small as nodding while talking. Eating with your non dominant hand. Washing your hands. Standing tall. These behaviors interrupt old patterns and signal to your mind that something new is happening.

The power is that you do not wait for motivation. You do not wait for clarity. You do not wait to feel like the person you hope to become. You step into that version now. You act as if you are already living with discipline. You act as if your habits are excellent. You act as if you are someone who eats healthy. You act as if you take care of your body. You act as if you are focused and attentive and aligned. What follows is not imagination. What follows is transformation.

This is not pretending. It is becoming. It is letting your doing shape your being. It is choosing to step into the identity you can see in the mind’s eye. It is refusing to wait on a future version of yourself and instead letting today be the birthplace of who you are becoming.

So I ask myself. Am I acting as if. Am I stepping into the routine. The identity. The awareness. The habits. The excellence. Am I walking like the man I believe God is shaping me into.

Today I choose to act as if. Because every small action is forming something inside me. Every choice is shaping the man I become. And I know who I am becoming. So I begin with what I do.