Don’t Skip the Awkward Parts

I had the opportunity to study abroad in college. Out of all my options, I chose another English-speaking country: England. I have family origins in England and Scotland, so it made sense to go. I was excited. I had already traveled quite a bit for my age within the U.S., so this felt like the next level. I was just nineteen, and this was the phase of my life where imposter syndrome loved to show up: I looked adult-ish. I sounded educated enough. I boarded the correct plane. I had my passport in hand. Everything was technically right. And then I heard the dialects around me.

Posh. Precise. Elegant.

My confidence stalled. I froze at simple questions. I squeaked out introductions to the people seated near me before the long flight. My body knew before my mind could explain it: I was out of my depth. I was a tourist—and the plane hadn’t even taken off yet. Nothing had gone wrong. And yet everything felt exposed. This was the moment I learned what fake it till you make it actually means.

And I stayed.

I listened more than I spoke. I mirrored their cadence. I paid attention to how conversations flowed instead of trying to force my way into them. I let myself be awkward without exiting entirely. At first, I was faking things—confidence, ease, belonging. But something subtle happened as the days passed. Familiarity crept in. What once felt foreign began to normalize. My body learned the rhythm before my mind could articulate it. And then, eventually, I wasn’t faking it anymore.

I embodied it. I was me again.

That’s the quiet power of this approach when it’s used as a tool. You fake things until you familiarize yourself. Familiarity brings normalization. Normalization brings ownership. Insecurity fades because reality proves survivable. Identity builds through lived experience. Growth happens here. This is a real path. It works.

But sometimes, the tool never gets put down.

You fake it.
Then you keep faking it.
Then you keep faking it.

The early discomfort never does its job because it’s never allowed to exist. Awkwardness is managed away. Uncertainty is overridden. Fear is ignored instead of allowed. The emotionally difficult thing never happens. What could have been a jumping-off point becomes a holding pattern. Imposter syndrome stops being a phase and starts becoming a lifestyle.

Over time, something chilling shifts. You’re no longer wondering whether you’re faking it. You know you are. Performance replaces authenticity. The role you’re playing becomes a shell you live inside instead of something you inhabit. From the outside, this can still look like success. You stay busy. Things continue. Appearances hold. There’s no obvious crisis. No clean reason to stop.

But inside, it’s different.

When the work settles and you finally have a moment to yourself, doubt creeps in, not the kind that sharpens growth, but a low, ambient unease like the throb of a migraine. You feel dissatisfied without knowing why. Disconnected from yourself. From purpose. From whatever originally brought you here.

You start quietly wondering if you’re in the right place.
If this role actually fits.
If you took a wrong turn along the way.

Because everything looks fine on the outside, you assume the problem must be you. So you tighten the performance. You stay busy. You keep going. The distance between who you are and who you present slowly widens—without language, without relief. Self-doubt becomes the quiet hum of your life.

It’s important to say this plainly: both paths are plagued by self-doubt.

Self-doubt isn’t the red flag. Almost everyone standing at the edge of growth feels it. It shows up whether you’re willing to deal with it or not. But, it can’t tell you which road you’re on. What can help is looking at what forms around you. When your internal signals feel muddy, external evidence brings clarity.

In leadership, you don’t evaluate yourself by how confident you feel. You look at the people you lead. Do they grow in capability? Do they speak up, take initiative, ask better questions over time? Are they willing to disagree, make mistakes, and recover? Or do they become cautious, compliant, or dependent on permission to perform?

In relationships, the same measure applies. Look at your partner. Look at your friends. Look at your people. Do they feel more alive in your presence? More free? More themselves? Or do they have to second-guess, self-edit, or disconnect just to show up?

Over time, our interior life leaves traces. What you refuse to process in yourself doesn’t disappear—it reorganizes the space around you. What you integrate creates room for others to integrate too. This is what people mean by fruit. It isn’t mystical. It’s observable. And in this context, it’s the cumulative effect of how someone relates to discomfort, truth, and growth because it is made visible in the people closest to them.

Self-doubt can exist on either path. But the evidence rarely lies. So, this is where our agency returns.

If you’re on the first path—stretching, integrating, letting awkwardness do its work—keep going. It won’t always feel like this. Familiarity will come. Confidence will catch up because it’s being built on something real. What feels unsteady now is often just the middle of becoming.

And if you recognize yourself in the second path, this isn’t a condemnation. It’s an invitation.

The discomfort you feel—the dissatisfaction, the disconnection, the quiet sense that something isn’t alive—isn’t proof that you’ve failed. It’s data. It’s information about where growth stalled and where it can resume. Shame will lock you into the loop. Avoidance will keep you performing. But attention, honest and compassionate attention, reopens the process.

You don’t have to flip all your tables. You don’t have to humiliate yourself. You just have to stop overriding the signal. Let the awkwardness exist. Let the emotionally difficult thing happen. Because growth requires contact again—contact with uncertainty, with awkwardness, with the parts of yourself you learned to manage instead of integrate. Becoming more yourself isn’t a feeling. It’s a process.

It happens when you stop overriding discomfort and let discomfort teach you. When you allow fear, doubt, and limitation to exist long enough to be acknowledged instead of hidden. When performance gives way to presence.

That’s where confidence actually forms.
That’s where identity solidifies.
That’s where growth resumes.

Not by faking harder, but by re-entering the very experience you learned to avoid.