The past week I have been studying a few resources on both body language and on psychology. To be more specific, I’ve seen a part of Pickup 101’s Body Language program with Lance Mason, the other resource was an audio version of How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Both are very interesting to learn from, so I can recommend both of them to you.

One of the main reasons I’m writing this article is because both Lance and Dale mentioned something very important in my opinion. While Lance was talking about body language, he mentioned that taking a confident body posture, would also make you feel confident. After that he gave a specific example with the emotion happiness and the expression of that emotion by smiling. Later that day, I was listening to Dale Carnegie, he mentioned the same example of smiling. This is what both of these guys were telling me to do: Just put on a smile for 30 seconds and notice how you feel afterwards. I suggest you try it now as well, I’ll wait here … 30 seconds should be enough … so, you’re done now? I bet you’re feeling a little more happy right now!

The common thought is that you will first experience an emotion in your mind and after that you will express this emotion by your facial expression. However, this small experiment shows it’s possible to turn that order around. And actually, you can do that with a lot of emotions and feelings. Try a sad, angry, proud or annoyed face, and you will see it works as well. If you think you can’t make these faces, just force yourself to do it.

Like Lance was explaining, this also works with confidence. Try to take a confident stance. Set your feet shoulder-wide apart. Shift your weight to one leg, make sure your body forms a straight line up to your shoulders, put your other foot on a ninety degree angle. Relax your shoulders, let them fall backwards. Don’t be fidgetting with your fingers, if you have problems not to do this then just lay your thumb on your index and middlefinger.

I’ll have more on confident body language later on, but for now just keep your facial expression happy and your body language confident. Smile to everyone and let’s make this happier world!