Acting "As If"
One of my favorite strategies to use with clients is acting “as if”. This strategy allows you to try something on, play pretend and gain experience without needing an official title or external permission. Acting “as if” is a low stakes way to notice in your body how a new situation might feel, get a sense of your skillset and what areas you may to develop, and potentially demonstrate to others that you are ready for the next step.
Do you want to move into a more leadership or management oriented role in your company? Act “as if” you are a leader or a manager. Of course you need to tread lightly here, you don’t want to be perceived as pushy, but there are subtle ways to do this. You can ask to mentor or manage an intern to start, you can join a club at work and play a leadership role, you can notice what good managers and leaders do and imagine how you could bring those qualities to your work environment given the chance. One of my clients has made some suggestions to her manager about improving employee morale based on things she has observed. She is managing-up in this situation by providing insights into an area where her manager needs her support. Whether her manager rewards this is out of her hands, but she is getting practice thinking like a manager and gets to see how it feels. Is this something she wants to work towards? Ultimately, she can talk about this experience in an interview if she decides to look elsewhere to get these opportunities to grow.
Another one of my clients has been out of the workforce for several years and is considering re-entering. She has young children and wants to figure out how it will work. I encouraged her to set up her job search process “as if” she is working. When does she have time to search for a job? Does she have the right set up at home? Does she need child care to be able to focus? How many hours can she realistically work a week? Does she need to “drop the ball” in some areas to make room for work? By pretending to have a job while she looks for a job, she is getting real world insights into her current situation. Not only can it inform a realistic schedule for her to negotiate when she receives a job offer, she can get a jump start figuring out what support she needs to move into this next phase of her life.
When working with people who are considering moving to a new home, my advice is to act “as if” they lived there now. Look into whether there is doggie daycare nearby, join Facebook groups for the town and follow them on instagram. Where would they go for coffee? See if there are gyms they would want to belong to or groups they would want to join. Go beyond just looking at the houses, see what it would be like to live there by pretending you already do.
Are there opportunities for you to act “as if” to prepare for something new? How can you experiment with this? How can you try something on for size before making a commitment?
If you are interested in exploring this concept more with support, reach out here for a free half-hour coaching consultation.
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
