I know I have put my best effort into things I wanted to achieve, and still failed...but that is largely do to all the mental crap I have to suffer with. Not so sure I quite get the term practice here...I mean how do you practice 'being happy' when you have depression. I can certainly act ok for a while but its not like practicing where the 'skill' gradually improves. I learned how to type fast without looking at the keyboard through practice, and can even type with my eyes closed. But then I had a therapist think I should more or less 'practice' walking up to other kids at school and interacting...but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't do it....its a mix of not knowing what to do/say and being severely afraid of potential rejection, ridicule and such.

it doesn't seem like 'practice' would help that even to this day I can only initiate interaction if its someone I know or its a situation where it is obviously appropriate like to ask the cashier for a pack of cigarettes...and even then I get really nervous.

But yes I am thinking of this in the context of having depression or other mental illness, as it was in the depression thing so my assumption was the question is 'does fake it till you make it work for depression' which I would say maybe for mild depression or if someone who is otherwise mentally healthy gets stuck in a rut...but for more severe cases I feel it can end up being detrimental.