The As If Principle: How to Be Who You Want to Be

“If you want a quality, act as if you already have it.”

William James is known as the “Father of American psychology”.

He wrote his two-volume magnum opus The Principles of Psychology back in 1890, and it’s still required reading for behavioral science students.

James was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, whose psychoanalytic approach was all about digging into people’s pasts to find the origins of their current neuroses.

By contrast, James believed you’re much better off dealing with your thoughts and behaviors in the current moment.

At one point, he famously said: “If you want a quality, act as if you already have it.”

And many years later, psychologist Richard Wiseman wrote a whole book on that idea called The As If Principle.

In it, he shows that hundreds of scientific studies now give support to acting “as if”.

So, if there’s a certain aspect of yourself you would like to change, you don’t have to analyze your past.

Instead, you’ll make much better progress by simply acting as if that change has already occurred.

We all know that our feelings influence our thoughts and behaviors.

But, as we covered in the previous lesson, this works the other way around, too. Our thoughts and behaviors influence our feelings.

And you can experience this first hand by putting the as if principle into practice:

• If you want to be happier, act like a happy person. Smile, laugh, and dance!

• If you want to be more confident, act like a confident person. Stand up tall, walk powerfully, and speak with assurance.

• If you want to be disciplined, act like a disciplined person. Show up and do what you said you would do.

Pretend to be the person you want to be and, gradually, you’ll discover that you are that person.