How to look confident (even when you feel anything but)

Aug 21

I saw somewhere that Vanessa Van Edwards calls herself a “recovering awkward person.” I feel this very strongly.

Hi! My name is Erica Hanlon. I’m a recovering awkward person.

I’m very good at making terrible jokes, saying the wrong thing, or making strange facial expressions. Also, I have very small hands that I gesture wildly about while I talk.

But, as you can imagine, thinking of yourself as an Awkward Person does not instill confidence. So what should you do when you really want to look confident but you feel anything but?

Why do we want to look confident?

When we think of a confident person, we usually think of someone who knows their stuff. So if you’re going into an interview or delivering a presentation or talking to some muckity-muck, you usually want to look confident. Because if you look confident, it’s more likely that others will have confidence in you.

We also tend to think of confident people as charismatic people. I don’t know about you, but when I think of someone confident, I imagine someone making a dramatic entrance. They throw open the doors and the confidence reverberates across the crowd. Everyone stops, mid sentence, stunned into silence, before turning to their companion and stage-whispering, “Who is THAT?” Confident Person doesn’t even care.

Clearly, I have an active imagination.

But in all seriousness, we often want to look confident because we think we’ll impress others.

How to keep nervousness from taking over

Show of hands - Who likes to look nervous?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Here’s the thing: When you get nervous, it’s easy to get nervous about LOOKING NERVOUS. Which, only makes you more nervous. It’s like pouring gasoline on the fire.

So, you’re nervous. Now how do you not look so nervous? It really comes down to letting the feelings be, instead of fighting against them.

Notice the nervous feeling. Find it in your body.
Allow the nervous feeling to be.
Try on some thoughts that can help you allow the nervousness. Something like: “My nerves are right on time!”
Think of your nervousness as a way of helping you get ready to do a great job

I heard a coach once say, “If you have butterflies, teach them to fly in formation.”

How to not look nervous

The first step in looking confident is to manage your anxiety. This doesn’t have to be complicated. We already talked about the importance of allowing the nervousness to just be.

The next step is to breathe. Really breathe. None of this fast, shallow business.

When you’re anxious, your body goes into fight or flight. Your heart races, your body goes tense, and you’ll start to breathe in quick, shallow breaths.

Take a slow, deep breath. Drive that breath right toward the nervousness. This tells your brain and your body that you’re calm. And what’s great is you can do it anywhere - a board room, your car, a networking event, ad nauseam.

How to look confident

Looking confident is all about your body language. More than the words you say, your body language convey how you feel. So you can hack this impression by changing how you hold and move your body.

The good news is that when you ACT confident, you’ll FEEL more confident. Here are some tips:

Expand your posture. Confident people take up space. Uncross your arms and spread out.
Hold up your head and make eye contact. Stand up straight and look the other person in the eye (but don’t be a creepy creeperson and stare).
Gesture with your hands. We naturally look at someone’s hands to see if they’re trustworthy. Take your hands out of your pockets and use them to help you make your point.
Smile. A smile makes you look friendly and approachable. Even if you’re on the phone, you can tell when someone is smiling.
Focus on the other person. Instead of thinking about how nervous you feel, move your focus to other person. Who knows? They might be more nervous than you are.

What’s better than looking confident?

Looking confident is great. But feeling confident is even better! And genuine confidence comes across naturally and easily.

If you want to really feel confident, the best thing you can do is work with coach. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s another confidence coach. A coach will help you figure out why you don’t feel confident and tap into the thoughts that will help you believe in yourself.

If you’re interested in working with me, let’s schedule a call. I’d love to find out how we can get you to where you want to be.

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