I've always pretended to be <X> in order to get whatever skill I've needed. I just call it "putting on hats". I learned to dance by pretending to be a dancer, I learned to sing by pretending to be a singer. When I teach, I pretend to be a teacher, and when I lead I pretend to be a leader (these last two actually came a lot easier to me when I was teaching hooping than now when I'm teaching rationality stuffs, and I haven't really sat down to figure out why. I probably should though, because I am significantly better at <X> when I can pretend to be it. And I highly value being better at these specific skills right now.)

I had always thought everyone did this, but now I see I might be generalizing from one example.