Confidence is Sexy! 3 Things You Can Do To Get More Of It.

I was hunting and gathering online last night, and during one Google search, I stumbled on this picture.

There is an experiment that Stanford professor Deborah Gruenfeld talks about in her lecture, Acting with Power. She invites audience members to sit in this retracted, power-less body position and say, “I am totally in charge. I’m invincible. I’m on top of the world.” She does the same with an expansive body position. Everyone laughs because it’s ludicrous and impossible. The audience feels the opposite of what they’re being asked to say.

If the woman in this picture were to speak, what would she say? Would she say, “I am totally in charge?” I don’t think so.

Imagine, if you will, a puppy dog in this same position: head down and to the side, tail tucked, knees knocked, toes in. You would feel sorry for this dog. Now imagine a man in a nice suit assuming this same position. That just feels wrong.

I write this, not to put the blame on fashion, but to bring awareness to the responsibility we have to ourselves. As we are surrounded by these images, we naturally mirror and mimic the shapes we see.

The physical postures we are assuming are sending messages on a moment-by-moment basis: determining our status at work, in our relationships and how we feel about ourselves.

Not surprisingly, the number one question I receive from my clients is, “How can I have more confidence?”

This chasm of confidence has opened up a deeper exploration for me. What is confidence? Is it a feeling, a residue from of our our past experiences, from how we were raised? Is it part of our DNA and either we have it or we don’t? Is it a state of mind? Is it a physical posture that can be assumed even if the feeling isn’t present? 

The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman says that confidence isn’t an attitude but is determined by actions you take. I tend to agree with this definition. We all want to do certain things but are fearful of failure. These nerves are normal. (See my post on Fear.) A confident person acts, regardless of experiencing this fear.

 I also appreciate the Urban dictionary’s definition: Confidence is sexy.

There are ways that we undercut our ability to feel and exude confidence every day. Let’s take this woman’s picture as an extreme example of what we do in our interactions and daily lives. If the woman in this picture was feeling under-confident, her body position isn’t helping. Here’s why:

1. She is tense: Her shoulders are pulled up and hugged close to her body. Her knees and feet are turned unnaturally inward.

2. She is disengaged from the situation: Her feet are pointed in two different directions, and her torso is facing away from the camera. By her body posture, we can assume that her head is also tilted and her eyes looking sheepishly at the ground. (We wouldn’t know because her head is cut off.)

3. She is guarded: With arms and hands close to the body, knees turned in and toes turned in, she is effectively cut off from the viewer. 

Here are 3 shifts YOU can make in your body posture every day that will change how confident you feel and how much confidence you exude:

As I write this I’m sitting at a cafe, next to my dog, who’s just been put in her place by a much smaller dog. The smaller dog asserted her alpha status immediately by jumping onto my lap (taking up space), making eye contact (engaging) with the other dog, and barking. She doesn’t quite have the vulnerability piece but for a small animal, she sure exudes confidence. Animals know how to use their body language. Why don’t we?