You and most anyone can improve non-verbal communication like body language, to increase presence, influence, and confidence. Many of us don’t realize that in everything we do, we are communicating something. The question is, are we communicating what we want to be communicating?
Nonverbal communication makes up the majority of our communication…up to 93%! I know, right? Your facial expressions, your tone of voice, the way you wear your hair, make-up, jewelry, clothes, and body language, like hand gestures and posture, are all telling a story…your story. The important question is: Is the story we’re telling, the story we want to be telling?
Taking control of our non-verbal communication can help us communicate our messages more effectively and increase our influence by reinforcing our verbal communication with our non-verbal reinforcements.
Here are 5 tips to get you started:
- Show your hands. Hands are trust factors so when you hide them in your pockets, under a table or desk at a meeting, or interviews you are essentially telling people you are hiding something, even if you aren’t. This makes trust building hard to take place reducing your trust, know and like factorability.
- Perfect your handshake. A happy hormone is generated through touch. A good handshake equates to two hours of face time, so make sure yours is firm, vertical, and dry. Keep it to 1-2 pumps. Any more and it’s just uncomfortable.
- Gaze with a purpose for impact. You want to be intentional about looking into people’s eyes but you don’t want to bring too much intensity to most social exchanges. It can feel overly aggressive. Great eye contact is no more than 70%. Anything less makes you look avoidant and anything more makes you look like a creep. Don’t be a creep.
- Power Pose before your next big thing. That’s right, channel your inner Wonder Woman and strike a pose before you leave the house. In the ladies room or even in your office before walking into a big meeting. This pose opens up your chest allowing you to take in deeper breaths and it changes our posture. Mix in a mantra like, “You got this, mama!” and immediately you will feel more energized.
- Front with people. When we like something, we turn our whole body towards it, especially pointing our feet toward it. Whether it be a sound, sight, smell, person, or thing, we give it full attention by facing it. This is called fronting. When someone you want to make an impact or impression, front with them. It makes people feel valued or feel your genuine interest or support with this non-verbal cue. After all, who doesn’t want to feel important?
These sound simple, right? They are and can have a
Take on one of these skills to practice every day. Once it feels comfortable and easy, move on to the next one.
These 5 practices will become part of your everyday experience with practice. They will amp up your presence and influence simply because you’re intentionally putting others at ease and exuding confidence.
Want to learn more about non-verbal communication? Click here.
Blog courtesy of Danielle Nava Consulting
Now that you’ve gained 5 tips to improve your non-verbal communication, learn about words that can ruin your sentence by clicking here.