I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed that I tend to dress the way that I feel. If I’m feeling a little lazy, I might put on jeans and a sweatshirt. If I’m feeling a little sporty, I whip out my bright pink tennis shoes. It goes the other way too. When I have to wear something fancy, I feel fancy and beautiful. Because our brains seem to work this way, it only makes sense that we can fake a mood until we feel that mood.

Gretchen Rubin talks about faking a mood until you feel it in her book The Happiness Project. In her book, she spends one year focusing on her life and how to be happier. Early in her endeavors, she spends one month faking it until she felt it, and she was quite surprised that it worked for her. We’ve all heard of studies done where people are given a placebo for an ailment in studies. Later, they begin to improve after receiving their “medication.” These people think they should be seeing changes; their mindsets have changed. In these cases, their bodies have changed too with the power of their minds.

The same can be said for our moods. If you are in a bad mood, fake a good mood until you really do feel happy. If you don’t feel confident, fake confidence until you feel it. It’s quite similar to visualization. You are tricking your mind into believing success is your only option. Trick your mind into the good mood you wish to be in. It will take practice on your part, and there might be a few things you just can’t fake your way out of such as sadness due to the death of a loved one. However, a typical bad mood can be taken care of with the refusal to let it ruin your day.