Act as if
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
These lines are from William Shakespeare's play As You Like It.
We are all actors and we act every single day of our lives in just being the person(s) we have subconsciously chosen to be. Most people do this every day. A young woman acts a completely different role when she is out socialising at night, than she does when she is sitting in a sales meeting with a new client the next day.
We have within us the ability to role-play and choose not only who we want to be but to act as if we already are that person, and we can do this for all of the different "roles" that we are required to play every day.
When you act as if you are the person you want to be, you will feel differently and you will behave differently. The behaviour of course is part of your acting. This is the power of "acting as if". When you act as if, your subconscious accepts your behaviour, your thoughts, and your feelings as natural and normal for you.
Acting as if you can do something, allows you do things you would not normally be able to do. This is especially true when it comes to doing something that requires confidence. You talk and act as if you are a confident person and you will be. If you do this often enough, it will become habitual, and so it will become your natural behaviour in that situation.
Say you are a teacher in training, and you are about to go into your very first practice teaching session. You have never done this before, so can't act from experience. But what you can do is to recall the teaching style and mannerisms of one of your favourite teachers when you were at school, and you act as if you are them. There are many situations like this where you can do this; you adopt the behaviour of a role model that you choose and just act the same.
But there is another advantage to acting-as-if that comes from the scientifically proven fact that how you feel mentally and emotionally affects how you act, look and feel physically. If a person is angry, depressed or happy, this is easily identified by their facial expression, their posture and their overall demeanour.
What is not as well known is that this works both ways. You can also change how you feel by changing the way you move, or your posture or your facial expression. This means that you can change your moods and feelings by changing your physiology. For example, forcing yourself to smile or laugh will make you feel good and can completely change your mood.
You can choose an emotion or a state, for example being happy or confident, and act, move and try and look the way you would if that was how you really felt. You can use this to change your state of mind so you actually feel that way.
This may seem like ‘acting’ at first, but it can be used to help put you in a better frame of mind any time you choose. You can actually ‘act’ your way to more positive thoughts and feelings by changing your physiology. Anthony Robbins is big on this.
When my children were old enough to understand, I told them that they did not have to grow up like either of their parents, and that I did not want them to grow up to be like me. I told them that if they ever saw their mother or I acting in a way that they did not like, for anything that they also do, or want to do, to go and choose another role model and act like them in that situation.
It may also help your children if they do some acting or attend some acting classes. My daughter took acting classes, and both of my children did some part-time acting as extras on Australian TV shows, mainly the long running Australian TV Drama Series, Neighbours.
If you want to learn more about how to act as if, NLP may also help you with this, and there is a link at the end of the book you should have a look at. here
There is also another great site, 'Act as if with Linda Predovsky', here, where you can find out more about acting as if, and you should especially follow the link to see the interview with Marlon Brando. here
Then have your children go and do some acting classes.
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