Microsoft Word who will cry when u die doc

86. 
Become an Imposter  
Research has shown that the way you act influences the thoughts you think. If you look to the ground, slouch 
over and generally model yourself physically after a depressed person, you will eventually start to feel 
depressed. If, on the other hand, you smile and laugh and stand upright with your head held high, you will soon 
find that you feel much better, even though you may not have been in a great mood to begin with. 
 
Using this information, you can start to “fake it till you make it.” In other words, you can pretend to be 
the kind of person you wish to be. By consistently acting as a highly enthusiastic person might or as a truly 
confident person would, you will eventually take on these personal attributes. 
 
The power of the “act like that which you most wish to become” technique was demonstrated by a study 
at Stanford University in which a team of psychologists took a group of emotionally secure college students and 
randomly separated them into two groups within a simulated prison setting. The first group was instructed to act 
like prison guards while the second group was told to the group members was affected so dramatically by this 
experiment that the psychologists were forced to end it after only six days. The “inmates” had become severely 
depressed, hysterical and suffered from crying bouts while the “guards” behaved cruelly and uncaringly. As this 
study confirms, the “acting as if” technique is a highly effective way to modify your behavior and transform 
yourself into the person you plan to be. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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