By Audrey Bivins 
To my students:
If you are in my classroom this year or were in it 15 years ago, I still consider you my student! For a lot of you, the fall is a time of new beginnings. For some people, the fall feels like more of a fresh start than January 1st. There will be new classes, new activities, new clubs and hobbies, new goals, and new jobs. There will be many opportunities for learning and growth, but also doubt and insecurity. This fall, let’s leave behind “fake it ’til you make it” and instead take up “humbly pursue growth.” Despite not having a catchy rhyme, I promise it will be an improvement.
“Fake it ‘til you make it” (FITYMI) is advice often doled out to those embarking on a new adventure. On the surface, it seems to make sense. Don’t let anyone see your insecurities; instead, always pretend you belong there until you feel like you do. However, an extreme FITYMI stance doesn’t really help you improve. It doesn’t leave room for asking for help, and potentially, it keeps you stuck alone.
As a new employee, this motto will keep you from asking for help from more seasoned coworkers, pretending you have it all together. As an athlete trying out a new sport, this method will keep you from asking questions or prevent coaching that could help you improve. As a student, you won’t be able to go to tutoring or ask questions that reveal weaknesses in your skills or knowledge.
FITYMI keeps us from getting help from the very people put there to help us. Moreover, I suspect that most of the time, we aren’t even faking it as well as we would like to hope. Our friends, teachers, coaches, and supervisors absolutely see some of those weaknesses that we see in ourselves, and often more than we can see. Surely, humbly asking for help is a better look than a cocky insistence that we are fine.
This doesn’t mean you have to broadcast your insecurities for everyone to see. When starting something new, it’s common to feel unprepared. However, you can rest confidently that you belong where you are. At a new job, you were hired because you were the best candidate they had. If you made the team, you were the best choice for the open spot. As a general rule, no one is giving out pity spots to underqualified contenders.
Sometimes that can be hard to see since it’s easy to look at other job applicants (who may have turned down the job), the retiree with 20 years of experience whose position you are filling, or last year’s star all-around athlete who graduated and left a hole in the team. Regardless, you were chosen because you were the best option for that job, team, concert band chair, or leadership role.
Another pitfall of FITYMI is it can keep you entrapped by fallacies—either ones of your own creation or those told to you by others. One poor performance—regardless of whether that performance is on a court, on a stage, at a job, or in a classroom—can be the reason someone whispers to themselves, “I am awful at this. Everyone else is better.” Similarly, criticism (fair or not) from someone else can also make you doubt your abilities. FITYMI will keep you from admitting that concern to a trusted friend or mentor, and getting their take.
From experience, I can tell you that it is likely that the friend, mentor, or coach—if you can bring yourself to ask him or her—will remind you that belong where you are, remind you of some of your strengths, and help you find ways to improve upon the weakness that made you question yourself in the first place. Without that support, some people will find they can’t conquer the feeling of self-doubt and will quit, often leaving behind teammates, bandmates, or coworkers who will wonder why someone with so much talent would quit.
This fall, my prayer for you, for my daughter as she tries out for a community musical, for my son as he enters a new grade in school, for my students as they try new opportunities and experiences, for my recently graduated students as they walk onto university campuses and enter new workplaces, and for myself as I start a new position is that we would leave behind “fake it ‘till you make it” and instead embrace humility and growth. Faking it wasn’t working for us anyway.
With love,
Mrs. Bivins
by Sherry White 
