How Playing “Make Believe” Made Me Unrecognizable

The Core Idea: Make-Believe as Transformation

What if I told you that the key to becoming the woman you’re meant to be has nothing to do with discipline, or willpower, or even strategy? What if the secret is something that you already know how to do, something you were probably an expert at when you were just five years old? I’m talking about playing “make believe”. And I’m going to show you how this one practice, when done with intention, can absolutely make you unrecognizable in the best possible way.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where our motto is simple. Elevate your self-image, elevate your life. I’m Tonya Leigh, your hostess, and I’ll guide you to become the woman who doesn’t just dream bigger, she lives bigger. Let’s dive in. 

Reclaiming Your Identity Power

Happy New Year, my friends, I am so thrilled that you’re here, because we are kicking off this year with something that I truly believe can change everything. Today, we are talking about how playing “make believe” made me unrecognizable. And before you think I’ve completely lost it, I promise you this is one of the most practical and powerful tools that you can use to transform your life. Here’s what I want you to think about. When you were a little kid, you knew exactly how to become someone new. You didn’t need permission, you didn’t need proof, you just put on a tutu and you were a ballerina. You grabbed a stethoscope and you were a doctor. You wrapped a towel around your shoulders and suddenly you were a superhero. 

You didn’t question it, you didn’t overthink it, you just played “make believe” until that character became real. And somewhere along the way, we were told to stop, to be realistic, to stop pretending. But here’s the truth, every major transformation in my life, from building a very successful business, to changing my relationship with my body, started with me playing make believe.

Make-Believe as Identity Practice (Not Fantasy)

Years ago, I started doing something wild, I started to imagine myself on the cover of a magazine. I would picture the headline, the photo, what I was wearing, what the feature story would say about me. It was things like, how she helped thousands of women reimagine their lives, or how she built a very successful business teaching self-image. But then, this is the most important part, I started being her.

I asked myself, how does she think? How does she dress? How does she carry herself? How does she spend her time? Even when I had zero evidence, even when the gap sometimes felt enormous, I still practice, because make believe isn’t fantasy, it’s literally making belief. Most people live from their past, make believe lets you live from your future, and there’s actually science behind this. The self-perception theory is where we form beliefs by watching our own behavior. When you act as if your brain uses that as evidence. Now, I’m going to share one of my favorite make believe stories because I want you to see how this has worked for me in my life.

Evidence Through Action (Self-Perception Theory)

When I first started my coaching business, gosh, it’s been almost two decades ago, I had two email subscribers, my mom and my dad. And honestly, I think they just subscribed because they were interested, and also probably a little concerned about my choice to leave my nursing career and start this new business. However, I would imagine myself as a world-class coach, with thousands of women wanting to work with me. So, I started being her.

I would create content as if thousands of women were reading it. I would show up professionally even when no one was watching. I invested in myself and the education that I knew that I needed to grow. And people thought I was crazy. They would say things like, “Why are you trying so hard? You barely have any clients.” But every time I showed up as her, my brain was taking notes. And within a few years, I built exactly what I imagined, not because I got lucky, but because I played “make believe” until my brain believed it was real, and then it created it. That’s how it works.

We are constantly giving our brains commands as to what to go out there and create. But that’s not my only story, I also have another example that really shows the power of playing make believe. You have to understand, I grew up in the deep South in a trailer, but I imagined myself as a worldly, sophisticated woman. But there was just one problem, the extent of my international travel at the time was when I went to Epcot Center with my family, and I think we visited France, Germany, and Mexico all within three hours. But I played “make believe” anyway. I would learn French words, I would listen to French films, I would cook French food, I even wore scarves like it was a full-time job.

I paid attention to how I lived, and people definitely commented. Now, here’s what’s crazy. Years later, I would end up leading my first retreat in Paris, and this retreat would end up selling out year after year. In fact, our last one, I’ll never forget, taking the women to the private room in Chanel, I even hosted a private dinner party at The Ritz, I even went to Hermès and bought them all scarves. It all started by me playing make believe. I have so many stories like this. The same thing happened with my weight. For years, I, like so many women, tried to fix my body, and nothing ever lasted. So, I finally figured out I need to “make believe”, I need to change my identity.

And so, I started to imagine the woman who was just naturally slim, the woman who enjoyed food without guilt, who ate slowly, who learned to eat until she was elegantly satisfied, who chose quality over quantity. And then, as I imagined it, I started to practice it, I started to show up as her. I would even set my table beautifully, I bought the good olive oil, I would go on walks after meals because that’s what I imagined her doing. And my brain the entire time was gathering evidence of, this is who you are, and then my body followed. I didn’t force change, I just simply became her.

And before I knew it, I had finally lost the 75 pounds, and was maintaining it literally effortlessly. The last story I will share with you that really makes this point come alive is when I imagined myself as a wine connoisseur. So, to start doing what an aspiring connoisseur would do, I signed up for a Sommelier class. And I remember going to my first class, and I was so eager to learn. And so, I sat on the front row, and the instructor asked if anyone had a favorite wine. And I enthusiastically raised my hand and announced, “I love rose wine.” I pronounced it like the flower, a rose. And I’ll never forget, some people laughed, and I was mortified, but I stayed. Because becoming a character takes repetition. I kept showing up, I kept learning, and eventually I earned my Sommelier certification, and I ended up becoming a food and wine writer, and years later, I would actually end up creating wine programs.

Living From the Future, Not the Past

But I have to be honest with you about something. When you start playing “make believe”, people are going to think that you’re crazy, that you’ve lost it. They are going to judge you, they’re going to criticize you, and I cannot tell you the number of comments I’ve received, people asking me why I act so fancy, or why I pretend to be someone that I’m not. And those types of questions are the ones that often stop women from becoming who they’re actually meant to be. Because I personally believe that your desires are helping you get back to yourself. Here’s what you need to understand. The world is always going to hand you beliefs, and most of the time those beliefs don’t fit the life you actually want to live, they’re just limitations of others that are projected onto you.

So, you have to guard your mind, you have to be willing to make your own beliefs. You have to be a little delusional, and yes, I mean that in the best possible way. You have to live in your fantasy world, your vision, even when everyone around you is telling you to be realistic. Here’s what I want you to know. You have to be willing to be awkward. Remember my rosé moment, also known as the rose moment? Well, that could have been the end of my “make believe”, but it wasn’t, because I know that living from my future means being willing to be uncomfortable in the present. The deeper truth is that this work isn’t about becoming someone new, it may feel like it, but as I was saying earlier, it’s about remembering who you are underneath the conditioning because most of us have been so conditioned that we don’t even know who we truly are anymore.

And she probably will be unrecognizable to others, but she won’t be that unrecognizable to you because you know the truth. If you really stop and pay attention, you know that this urge, this desire of wanting to reinvent yourself is really about you getting back to who you truly are. Let me ask you, what magazine cover do you see yourself on? What is the headline? Who is that version of you? Allow yourself to dream of the possibilities of that woman you are wanting to step into, because after years of doing this work, of imagining those covers and bringing them to life, I realized that there was an actual process to it. There is a methodology, a way of approaching reinvention that was completely different from anything else out there that I had ever experienced. And that is exactly why I created a workshop called Live Like an Editor.

It has been running for six years, actually, this will be our sixth year. What’s so fun for me is to watch women come back year after year to go through this process, not because they didn’t get it the first time, but because it’s that powerful. Every year they create a new magazine cover. Every year they reimagine their lives. They make new choices, they allow themselves to dream about the next version of themselves. I love that in just five days, we map out the next 360. These are five days that literally change the trajectory of your entire year.

And here’s what makes this different. I like to consider this self-styling versus self-help. We’re not fixing what’s broken, we are curating what’s already there. We’re not adding more to your already overwhelming life, we’re editing out what doesn’t belong so that the real you can emerge. Just like a magazine editor, you’re going to learn how to envision the cover story of your life, who you’re becoming and what that looks like. You’re going to identify what stays in your story and what you need to add in. You are going to learn how to create your environment, everything from how you show up, to your habits, to your beliefs, to reflect that vision.

You’re going to learn how to live from your future rather than live from your past. This is about approaching change from an entirely new energy. It’s sophisticated, it’s intentional, it’s about becoming the editor-in-chief of your own life rather than letting life edit you. So, if you’re ready to step into a whole new way of living, if you’re ready to stop waiting for permission, if you’re ready to start living from your future instead of your past, this workshop is for you.

You can find all of the details at schoolofselfimage.com/editor or just click that link right down below. I look forward to potentially spending five days with you inside the Live Like an Editor workshop. And I just want to say, if you’re enjoying these conversations, don’t forget to hit subscribe so that you don’t miss what’s next. Have a beautiful week, my friends, and go out there and play some “make believe”. I’ll see you in the next episode. Cheers.