Non-Verbal Cues That Convey Confidence
Earlier this week, I met up with a friend for lunch.
She works in healthcare and was telling me how difficult it’s been to fill a junior carer position.
‘‘I’m so drained with the number of interviews we’ve had, and we still haven’t found anyone remotely suitable. Half the candidates don’t even want to be there, and the other half are just so nervous and fidgety, I don’t think they’d cope particularly well in our kind of environment – most of them can’t even look me in the eye!’’, she told me.
‘‘I can see why you’d think they’d be nervous if they can’t even look you in the eye, but what makes you think the other candidates don’t want to be there?’’
‘‘Well, most of the time when I’m speaking or asking a question, they look distracted. Their face is blank, there’s no emotion there. They’re just not engaged. They sit back in their chairs rather than lean in. I may as well be talking to a brick wall half the time!’’
‘‘What about their answers to your questions?’’
‘‘Well, most of them say a lot of the right things, but it’s just the way they say it and come across. It almost feels like a contradiction. You can just tell they’re not that interested or would rather be elsewhere.’’
So often, it’s not what we say, it’s what our nonverbal cues are communicating while we say it.
A significant amount of the communication that goes on between people is non-verbal.
These non-verbal cues are a large indicator of our confidence and comfort level in any given situation, and it can make or break our chances of landing a job, giving a successful presentation, networking effectively or even getting that date!
Are your nonverbal cues connecting with others and sending the right message?
Do you want the ability to walk into any room and project a confident, credible, and composed image?
If you want to exude confidence in any situation and increase your chances of success, take note of my tips below:
1.) Optimise Eye Contact and Limit Nervous Movements
Eye contact, facial expressions and movements provide important social and emotional information. All our interactions usually involve looking at each other’s eyes and faces for positive or negative mood signs and searching for clues by way of body movements and gestures.
Avoiding eye contact makes us look untrustworthy, shifty, uninterested, or nervous. When you are listening or speaking to someone, look them in the eye. This instantly makes you look more confident, approachable, and comfortable, and shows that you’re engaged in the conversation. And make sure to smile!
Similarly, take note of your movements. Are you leaning forward to show that you’re listening or stepping back to indicate that you’re looking for a way out of the conversation? Are you touching your face or neck frequently, or fidgeting? These movements draw attention away from what we’re saying and make us look anxious, nervous, or afraid. To appear more confident, keep these movements to a minimum.
2.) Maintain A Strong Posture
Want to build confidence in a matter of seconds? One way is to maintain a strong and assertive posture. This will make us appear more confident, balanced, and grounded, and it will also help us feel it, too.
When standing, imagine a string pulling your head up toward the sky, and keep your feet planted firmly on the floor, shoulder width apart. This will help you stand straight and tall and keep your head level. Make sure you let your arms hang down naturally at your sides and keep your shoulders back.
Slouching, slumping, and crossing our arms and legs can signal being protective, guarded, anxious, or not interested, so try to avoid these if you want to come across as confident.
3.) Strike A Power Pose to Get in The Right Mindset
In her TED TALK on body language and in her book, ‘Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges’, social psychologist Amy Cuddy says that striking power poses can send signals to our brain that we’re feeling confident, which in turn, produces more testosterone and lowers our cortisol levels (our stress hormone).
Based on her research, Cuddy claims that tweaking our body language from powerless poses (slouching, arms crossed, head held low) to powerful ones (holding our hands on our hips like Wonder Woman or Superman, standing up straight with shoulders back and chest open, or arms open or held up high), can help change our mindset.
She reveals that if we act powerfully, our brain will start to believe that we’re powerful, thereby reducing negative self-talk and unproductive thinking patterns. So, make sure you strike and hold a power pose for a couple of minutes, to gain an instant boost of confidence before your next meeting, presentation, or a difficult conversation!
4.) Mirror Body Language
An effective strategy to build rapport with others quickly and signal our confidence and comfort, is to mirror their gestures, postures, speech patterns, and mannerisms.
If someone is sitting or speaking in a certain way, or gesturing with their hands, you might want to incorporate similar positions, speech patterns (tone, volume, pace) and movements. The key here is doing this in a way that comes across as natural, and not to look as though you are mimicking or copying someone in an obvious (albeit, creepy) way!
This takes practice, but by mirroring others, we send a signal that we’re interested and engaged, and want to build a connection with them. It also establishes a sense of empathy and understanding.
5.) Slow down your speech
Do you often find that you have excess energy before a big presentation, interview, or important meeting? And this causes you to babble and talk faster than the speed of light? This is something I’ve had to work on personally over the years, and I’ve found this is usually brought on by the adrenaline rush (I get this way when I’m nervous and anxious, as well as excited and passionate – I have a lot of energy!).
To help get rid of that excess energy, I find it really helps to do activities beforehand. For instance, going for a run or walk, or doing some yoga or a quick meditation (sex helps too!).
A few deep breaths right before the event or harnessing the power of the pause during, can also help calm nerves, slow down our speech, and get us back to our baseline so we present as calm, confident, and credible.
Remember, you don't have to feel confident first to change your behaviour.
Instead, teach yourself how to be confident over time by implementing the above tips. If we start acting in a confident way and making small changes to how we speak, stand, and behave, we can significantly improve our confidence levels naturally over time.