This post comes from Mark over at Building Bulletproof. As someone who struggles with eye contact, I appreciate his challenge. Thanks, Mark!
How do you manage anxiety and eye contact?
Bernard always has unflinching, constant eye contact.
It came to my attention recently that I rarely maintain eye contact with people for longer than two or three seconds. I put it down to residual, subconscious feelings of inadequacy and low confidence from when I was overweight. I would look at my shoes, my hands or off into vacant space. Anywhere that would reduce the intimacy between myself and whomever I was speaking to.
The simple fact is that maintaining firm eye contact in the right context is one of the easiest ways to assert confidence and make fine impressions on people. It establishes an intimacy, platonic or whatever.
Don’t take this the wrong way and assume this is all about creating physical attraction. Being comfortable with intimacy transcends sexuality – it’s a manifestation of being comfortable with the product you’re putting out there, which is yourself.
I’m confident and comfortable in my skin and persona at this point in time. This past year has seen me lose weight, gain muscle and improve my communication skills through reading. So I decided it was time to kick this poor habit which was a manifestation of anxieties I no longer had. I decided to take the eye contact challenge.
The challenge was simple. Maintain constant eye contact during conversations until it felt natural.
During regular conversations in the work kitchen I would look directly into co-workers’ eyes while dribbling on with the usual mundane chats of weekends and weather. I tried to specifically speak to females, as those interactions would have likely engaged the residual eye contact anxieties at a heightened level (given that I’m a single male).
There’s no denying that the challenge was exactly that – a challenge.
Initially I felt like I was coming off as strange or creepy, but over the past few weeks I’ve persisted and grown comfortable with the intimacy. Combined with correct posture, I am positive that the energy and persona I’m currently putting out is the best I ever have.
Here are a few tips for succeeding in the eye contact challenge:
- Keep your conversation light and simple early on in the challenge, otherwise you’ll find it difficult to multi-task.
- Nine times out of ten, ignore your inhibitions that tell you you’re being weird. Unless you’re locking eyes whilst invading someone’s personal space, melting their eyebrows with your breath and asking for their phone number, you’re not doing anything unusual.
- Smile when possible, it keeps the interaction natural and comfortable
- Incorporate appropriate hand and arm movements within context
Take the Eye Contact Challenge today and start giving off the best impression you can, whilst ridding yourself of unnecessary anxieties.
Thanks again, Mark. Again, you can send guest posts to me at anxietyadventures@gmail.com.
Also, friends, I am currently having a hard time. I’ve been vaguely tweeting about it. I’m struggling to find anything that feels remotely comforting since I’ve lost interest in everything I used to enjoy and thus cannot derive pleasure, relaxation, or comfort from anything. Feel free to post ideas below, via social media, or using the Contact form above. Note that my motivation is really poor, so things like exercise or skydiving probably won’t work.
Filed under: Anxiety, Guest Post Tagged: anxiety, body language, eye contact, health, intimacy, mental health, psychology, social anxiety, social anxiety disorder, vulnerability
