Appearance is the most important first impression anyone will get of you. Peter envied his friend Jack because Jack seem to succeed at almost anything he worked at.
Peter had a good idea of Jack’s secrets and decided to put them into practice. By controlling his body language with confidence, and improving on his personal appearance – Peter started succeeding himself at many things he failed at in the past.
Peter got himself some new clothes, a new haircut, and he shaved his scraggly beard. Suddenly, Peter was bursting, it seemed, with new energy, self-confidence and assertiveness. Life was now different.
Feeling the Part:
Feeling positive is the leading factor in developing self-confidence and achieving assertiveness. It helps when you generally feel good about yourself; it gives you a sense of self-worth. Self-talk and recognizing and working with your strengths. Everyone has weaknesses; being positive means recognizing your weaknesses and challenging yourself to not succumb to them, but rather working against them so that you gain favour and achieve your goals.
Identifying Your Worth:
“Being important, sufficiently good, or interesting to justify a specified action” is the meaning of worth.
When you have a sense of worth, you feel like you are always in control of your circumstances, and you would exude a sense of deep confidence in yourself. You will feel like you have the power to change your world, and you will be more happy than others.
Here are some things that will help with your self-worth:
Physical appearance: Your Height, weight, facial appearance, skin, hair, style of dress, other visible body areas.
How you relate to others: Co-workers, friends, family, and strangers in social settings.
Personality: Positive versus negative personality traits.
How other people see you: Positive versus negative perceptions, as viewed by others.
Performance at work: How do you handle major tasks?
Performance of the daily tasks of life: How you handle health, hygiene, maintenance of your living environment, food preparation, caring for children or parents?
Mental functioning: How you reason and solve problems? Your capacity for learning and creativity, your knowledge, wisdom, insights.
Creating Positive Self-Talk
Affirmations, or positive self-talk, is an action that allows you to recognize, validate and apply your full potential in every situation with respect to all that you are and do.
Affirmations is like your personal ‘accomplishment scale’. Here are some tips for using affirmations effectively:
Use present tense; deal with what exists today.
Frame all your affirmations in the positive.
Remain personal; affirmations must relate to you and you only.
Keep sentences short and simple.
Go with your gut: If it “clicks”, then just say it. affirmations should feel positive, expanding, freeing, and supporting.
Focus on new things, rather than changing what is.
Act “as if”; give yourself permission to believe the idea is true right now.
If using affirmations is new to you, it is a good idea to first think about the things that are wonderful about you, such as:
I have someone I love, and we enjoy spending time together
I am a mother / father, fulfilled in this role
My career is challenging and fulfilling.
When I learn something new, I feel proud.
I am worthwhile because I breathe and feel; I am aware.
When I feel pain, I love, I survive. I am a good person.
Identifying and Addressing Strengths and Weaknesses:
The specific words and phrases you use in affirmations would allow you to identify your strengths and take note of your weaknesses. You need to use relatable words that deal ‘death’ blows to your specific weaknesses.
Looking the Part:
Confidence and positive appearance is a result of a strong sense of personal worth. Looking the part is just as important as it would influence the people around you. Your positive appearance will boost your self-confidence and your performance. Higher performance has a way of repeating itself over and over again, increasing your confidence. Looking, and feeling, the part is the important part of being more assertive and confident as it pays off great dividends more quickly than someone who is not assertive and exudes self-confidence.
The Role of Body Language:
Body language is “what we say without using words”.
Postures, stylized gestures, and physiologic signs are all cues to other people of the messages we send and receive through body language all the time.
Accordingly to UCLA, up to 93 percent of communication is determined by nonverbal cues.
Another study indicated the impact of a performance was determined 7 percent by the words used, 38 percent by voice quality, and 55 percent by non-verbal communication.
If there seems to be a conflict between the words you are saying and the ‘signals’ your body is speaking – your listener will consider the unspoken.
Some components of body language are:
Eye contact: The amount, level and intensity of eye contact you maintain with the person with whom you are speaking will normally cause you to be perceived as more favorable, understanding and confident.
Posture: Slouching is a big “No, NO” if you desire to be favoured. Sit comfortable or stand up strong and confident that work for you.
Excessive or unrelated head, facial, hand and body Movement: All movement must be tailored to suit the situation. Too little may be interpreted that you are not interested. Too much can also be a turn-off since it can divert attention from the verbal message.
You don’t want to say, for example, “I like you” but your face shows a frown, it is interpreted as “I am annoyed with you”.
Next week, in Part Six: ‘Sounding the part – it’s How You Say It’, ‘Powerful Presentations’, ‘On the Spot – What to Do’, ‘Using S.T.A.R. to Make Your Case’.
Again, thank you, and much success!
For more information on quality, affordable, world-class workshops offered, please email: [email protected].
