Access Points to Confidence #7 - Take Up Space

While you may think of confidence as being a state of mind, it’s useful to also consider how it is emanated and communicated by the body.

If you took a moment in observation, you would notice that confidence is communicated by physicality.

Standing strong, sitting upright, leaning in, leaning back and being open are all postures that communicate a sense of personal power.

Being at ease with yourself helps you feel comfortable spreading out, opening up and leaning in.

While the expressions the body adopts follow your state of mind, you can also use this insight in reverse.

Adopting confident body language can help you feel more powerful, even if you don’t start off that way.

Expansion Builds Confidence

Research by Harvard Professor Amy Cuddy shows that adopting expansive poses has a physiological and measurable affect on mood, attitude, emotions and feelings about the self.

Specifically, the way you use your body can help you feel more powerful.

This has been shown to be relevant not only to the way you stand or sit, but also to the way you walk, and where you place your fingers and your hands.

Try this simple exercise to test this out.

Finger Tenting

Bring your hands up in front of you with the fingers pointing toward the ceiling and your palms facing each other. Now bring the tips of your fingers together and spread them out as far as you can. Here’s an image to help.

This simple gesture is a more expansive way of holding the fingers, compared to usual where they may be resting on your lap or by your sides.

How did this make you feel?

Did you feel any more confident or powerful?

Minimise Shrinking and Slumping

The flip side to this is to be mindful of when your body language is communicating a lower sense of personal power.

Watch out for shrinking, slumping, restricting, closing and wrapping yourself up. Anything that takes you closer to the foetal position is communicatng a lower sense of confidence.

Next time you have an important presentation or meeting to attend and are looking to access greater levels of confidence, try expanding your body, taking up more space, tenting your fingers and noticing how you feel as a result. 

Expansion provides access to greater self-confidence.