A Look in the Mirror – Evaluating Your Own Confidence
November 4th, 2008 by AndyIf you’ve been reading my articles, you’ve probably been recognizing an overall theme which is that self-confidence is the key to many things. Across your professional life and your personal life, your self-confidence has many opportunities to affect the results you get. What you may not realize is how easy it can be to evaluate your level of confidence.
What I would like to propose is that you look in a mirror. Take a few minutes to study that person you see as if you are looking at a different person. Notice the feelings you get from this person, and attempt to figure out what it is that gives you these feelings. In this exercise you are looking at yourself through the eyes of another person, reacting to your own non-verbal communication, and attempting to determine the source of it.
Now you can try imagine other situations and look at yourself as if you were watching another person in that situation. Take a few minutes, close your eyes if you need to, and really imagine yourself being in that situation. Now look at that “other” person in the mirror as if that person is in that situation. Notice the feelings you have now, and try to notice the non-verbal communication. Is the person smiling or frowning? How is he/she standing? Now try to figure out why once again.
You should repeat this many times with different situations and circumstances both positive and negative. This is also an exercise you will want to repeat occasionally, and perhaps get in the habit of doing regularly. Not only can it help you to identify your confidence issues, but it will also help you to become more conscious of the non-verbal communication of other people.
Personally, I use this technique discreetly many times a day. When I notice I’m feeling a particular way, I simply look at my reflection somewhere. It doesn’t matter if it’s a mirror or a window as long as I can see my reflection just long enough to notice how those feelings are being reflected non-verbally.
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November 4th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I am liking your theme of non-verbal communication. The communications we send out are just as important as those we witness. I often think of this when I find someone acting unreasonable or hostile…are they reflecting my non-verbal communications? And, can I help them by concentrating on more positive gestures?
November 4th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I really can’t say whether or not that’s the case, but it could be. It could also be any one of a million other things. Perhaps they’re having a bad day, month or year. Maybe they have a lot of built up hostility.
Improving our own confidence, and in return our non-verbal communication, increases the chances that people will react to us favorably. At the same time being able to interpret the non-verbal communication of other people consciously gives us the ability to watch for cues that can help us to figure out how to be interpreted more favorably. For instance in some wacky case you might notice that if you smile, the person becomes more hostile, but if you join their reality and frown, they’re more receptive to you.
Really this subject is much too complicated to sum up in a comment, so I will write an article on it very soon.
November 4th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
[...] my last article, A Look in the Mirror – Evaluating Your Own Confidence, I discussed a technique that you can use to not only evaluate your confidence, but also begin to [...]