Fake it Til You Make It

There are overwhelming volumes of research that prove that the body and the mind don't know the difference between what you've actually done and what you tell it you've done. For example, let's take that golfer. When you see championship golfers, they spend a lot of time before each shot just imagining it. They feel the swing, feel the club touch the ball, sense the exact amount of force needed, see the ball move exactly as they need it to.

It’s the same with the motorcycle racer. The best of the best, MotoGP, don’t get to practice with their GP race bikes until right before each race. They get a few test days at the end of the season and the beginning of the season. That’s it! So how do they do such amazing things on the track if they only get four practice sessions over the two days before each race? They learn the tracks and then they spend hour after hour practicing in their heads. They hit the brake marker. They dive in. They throttle out of that corner looking through the turn. They've done it so many times their mind thinks they've actually ridden that track.

Where am I going with this and how does it connect with "fake it till you make it" and days when you're down? Not only can thinking make your body feel as though you've done something, but it also works the other way around. Think about what you do when you're excited. You jump up and down or you beebop or pump your fist. You do something physically that indicates you're excited.