The new habit will feel like acting for a while. Every real thing starts out feeling like a performance.

Anything you have decided to be, rather than always been, feels staged at the start, because you are choosing behavior that has not gone automatic yet. That sense of pretending is not dishonesty. It is what the early stage of real change feels like from inside it. The self-consciousness fades long before the behavior does.

When the new thing feels put on, keep doing it and stop checking whether it feels sincere yet. Sincerity is a result of repetition rather than a requirement for it. Give it long enough to stop needing your attention.