Becoming Who You Want To Be By Pretending To Be Someone Else

The mental magic trick that saved my life.

Photo of Derek MacDonald pretending to be the mountaineering writer/philosopher, John Muir.

About 10 years ago, my best friend answered the phone when I was in the middle of a mental health crisis.

My voice wobbled, but his didn’t. He was calm, offering sage advice that ended up saving my life. Years later, I’d asked him how he’d stayed so level-headed during that phone call, since it was his clarity that’d made the difference. What he said next is something I’ll hold onto for the rest of my life.

He told me that when he answered the phone he was terrified. But he knew he needed to find a way to keep calm. So he asked himself: “What would Derek do if roles were reversed?”

And then, he tried to act like me.

My throat still catches thinking about it. It’s one of the most profound mindset shifts I’ve ever come across. I use it all the time now. When I’m down and trying to remember to be nice to myself, I think of what he would do to help.

Then I act like him.

Imitation is a form of mental magic—you pretend to be the thing you want to become… then you do.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, this little magic trick. It works wonders. Sure, it’s great for mental health turnarounds, but it’s also extremely effective for gaining a surprising number of new skills.

When people say following your dreams can be hard, they’re actually saying something more subtle, and far less sexy: that getting up when you’re knocked down takes commitment. And what they mean—even though they don’t explicitly say it—is that knowing what to do to get ahead is intimidating.

Not knowing what steps to take is how you get stuck in a rut, doing the same stuff that doesn’t seem to be getting you anywhere. It really hurts to work for something that always feels just out of reach. It’s arduous and tiring.

Maybe you’ve seen this in action, too. For example, millions of people try to start a new gym habit on January 1st every year. Everyone wants to be the hero who’s still at it 6 months later, but most end up thinking, “ugh do I really have to go to the gym today??” by week two. The mental magic of imitation is how you can get out of that rut.

To become someone who morphs into a gym-person, start asking “what would someone who goes to the gym do?”

Then, do that.

You can reframe the hustle harder mindset by using your strengths to improve your weaknesses.

There’s a fine line between doing something right but not giving it enough time to pay off, and doing something wrong and waiting too long for a payoff that’s not coming. I’ve been reflecting on what this looks like in my own life.

If you only ever try to fix what you’re bad at, you might get better over time… but when you focus on what you’re already good at, you’ll make a lot more progress now. I really, really, really wish I’d learned that sooner.

So, now I’m doing a hybrid of both to make up for lost time. I’m leading with my strengths while working on what I’m bad at, to make progress now and to get ahead in the long-run. I figure this gives me the greatest Return On Time Invested (ROTI).

Use what inspires you to try becoming something new.

I was driving home to Vermont after a quick trip to Massachusetts when something crystalized for me. It wasn’t a new revelation, exactly, but it was one of those moments where things snap into place. While the green mountains, green trees, and green exit signs passed by outside, I’d been thinking about life… getting a little highway therapy as they say.

After starting my newsletter over a year and a half ago, the thing I felt most proud of was that I was still doing it—showing up, experimenting, and finding ways to get better. Thinking back, my writing seemed like it’d been improving significantly. As did the format and cadence of what I was publishing. I was a long way from where I wanted to be, but I was happy with the journey so far.

Continuing my drive along 89 North, I listened to a podcast interview with 61x Moth Storytelling Champion, Matthew Dicks. As someone who frequently attends Moth storytelling events as a spectator, I’d been looking for some inspiration to take the stage myself—

STORYTELLING!

I felt a jolt of determination when I realized that’s what’s been holding me back. I’d got past the fear of publishing. And built the habit of showing up. But the part where a story actually lands was still missing... I’m a ramblin’ man who lacks structure when it comes to making his point in a way that resonates. I’ve even written about why trying to be understood doesn't create connection before but, basically, where some people swap stories… I spew answers.

Passing off insights as conversational fodder was something I’d done for most of my life. It saved me from actually revealing a whole lot of personal detail. Or any, really. It’s what you do when you don’t know how to share your experiences so you lean on explaining your thoughts instead.

Here’s the gist of why people like me do this: over-explaining is a trauma response.

Specifically, it’s a form of fawning. As in “fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.” The idea is to avoid conflict while also gaining approval. But, thanks to Matthew Dicks and my newly fortified focus on learning more about telling better stories, I’d just found a few ways to help me work on it.

Getting good with good enough is how you play the long game.

Back in Vermont, I sat with my partner, Isobel, in the screened-in porch of the fenced-in back yard. We each had our laptops open. Moments before, we’d been bouncing ideas off of one another while kicking around a soccer ball in the grass. Now, with locked-in expressions of focus on our faces, we were spending the afternoon click-clacking away on our respective creative projects.

All of this began with a newsletter… with me actually doing something to pursue my writing. It’d been a long-dreamt-of side project to my 9-5 where I worked in marketing & sales technology. If I hadn’t done that, I’m not sure I’d be here right now... writing full-time, from the back yard, while creating work I actually care about.

The thing that’s been bothering me the most is that the journey to get here has felt... invisible. Or, hard to account for.

So, I asked myself: “what would Matthew Dicks do?”

The answer came to mind easily enough, but it’s going to be really hard for me. Because it means telling more stories. And not just the highlight-reel—he stresses that it’s actually less about what happened and more about how you felt about it. That’s what helps people connect. Can you feel me squirming as I’m typing this?

In any event, I wanted to create a single place to easily collect and display all of my work (shoutout Seth Werkheiser). And so, I did just that. I built it in the form of a newly overhauled website. What I’m even more excited about is that it’s continuing to change in real-time. Rather than just explain it in this beautifully boring statement, I’m embarking on a mission to show more of the stories behind what’s going into building it. You can learn more about where to find those, here.

For me, part of this becoming who you want to be business included making time to kick around a soccer ball with Isobel. If you’re looking to learn the mental magic of imitation, start with someone in your life whose skills you admire.

Ask yourself what they’d do… then do that—just like my friend taught me how to do. And most importantly: please remember to be nice to yourself while you do it.

onward.

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