By Robert Pagliarini,
Tribune Media Services
Are you ever in a professional or personal setting where you feel intimidated, unsure of your abilities, nervous, awkward or downright scared? No more. What would your life look like if you had more confidence and felt more powerful? Would you perform better at work, during a job interview or while giving a presentation? Would you be able to engage with members of the opposite sex more freely and have a little more swag in your step? Get ready to learn a simple and proven technique to boost your confidence instantly. It’s a big promise to be sure and not one I make lightly. I really hate hyperbole and promises of quick fixes and easy solutions, but once in a while I come across something that really has the power to change lives. This is one of those times.
So what’s the secret to a powerful performance? Preparation for sure, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that all you need is to be prepared. Even if you know your stuff inside and out, if you aren’t confident, you will fail to perform. You’ve seen this a thousand times — the presentation where you focus more on the timid and awkward delivery than the message. There is no worse feeling than knowing you could have killed it if it hadn’t been for your nerves, doubts or hesitation. When you get your shot, you have to be more than prepared.
The real X factor that determines who gets the job, the promotion or even the girl is confidence. Since confidence is the magical pixie dust that can mean the difference between success and failure, you should spend just as much time on your mental game as you do on your work. But if you’re in a pressure situation, and you don’t have your sports psychologist on speed dial, then there is another option that research shows can immediately boost your confidence.
It turns out mom was right. When she told you to stand up straight, she instinctively knew that how others view you can influence their perception of you. But what she didn’t know is that when we stand up straight we not only influence how others perceive us, but how we perceive ourselves.
Professor Amy Cuddy of Harvard Business School has researched this fascinating topic and found that even if we “fake” body postures that convey confidence and power (what she calls “power posing”) — even for as little as two minutes — it “changes our testosterone and cortisol levels, increases our appetite for risk, causes us to perform better in job interviews, and generally configures our brains to cope well in stressful situations.”
Here is how you can immediately boost your confidence:
1. Preparation: Get big for two minutes. If you want confidence, it’s all about becoming big. Before the presentation or job interview (or frankly any time you want to have more confidence), move and expand your body. Stretch your arms outward or to the ceiling. Exaggerate your movements. Put your hands behind your back and your feet up on the desk. Do whatever you can to become as physically big as possible. The research shows that all it takes is just two minutes of this kind of movement in order to increase your confidence.
2. Performance: Fill the space. Now that it’s game time, you don’t want to make such exaggerated movements and you don’t want to try to out-power someone who is naturally in a more powerful role (e.g., if you are interviewing for a job). Nor do you want to shrink into a passive position like so many others do. You need to walk a fine line between being too much and too little. Amy Cuddy’s advice is to be as big as you can comfortably be by standing tall, keeping your shoulders back and having your feet apart. If you are sitting, don’t sink into your chair. Sit up straight and keep your arms loose and on the armrests of the chair. Resist the natural tendency to shrink in this situation by doing what you can to “fill the room.”
Success is about dreaming big, playing big and becoming big. Just remember to expand your body to expand your confidence.
Robert Pagliarini is a CBMoneyWatch columnist and the author of “The Other 8 Hours: Maximize Your Free Time to Create New Wealth & Purpose” and the national best-seller “The Six Day Financial Makeover.” Visit YourOther8Hours.com.
This was printed in the September 22, 2013 – October 5, 2013 Edition
