How you walk into a room sets the tone for how others see you.
I look back at my life and think of all the different ways I’ve walked into rooms. The times I was feeling insecure or uncomfortable made my experience disconnected and fear based; I was worried about what other people thought. The times I walked into a room feeling happy to be there, comfortable in my own skin, ready to meet new people and curious I always had fun.
What are you thinking when you walk into a room? What sensations do you experience in your body? You know when you’re in the grocery store and you pass someone and it feels awful and you want to avoid them or you feel something unpleasant physically? We directly influence our experiences by the way we interact with ourselves as we land in any space or building. We influence how others perceive us by the way we think and feel.
What we say with our bodies sets the tone for how others see us. It sets the tone for intimate relationships, friendships, business negotiations and relationships.
Your energy is emitted in palpable ways.
You can walk into a room and find people feel calm or drawn to you or you can walk in feeling self conscious and worried and it will be harder to connect. Or you can also light a room on ‘fire’ with your charisma. Even if you’re not a larger-than-life personality, it doesn’t mean you don’t have the ability to be engaging. Your engagement just looks different. We invite people in when we’re not worried about what they think about us or that we don’t fit in.
If you walk into a room feeling self-conscious and paranoid about how others might see you, if you feel nervous and hold your breath, you will find it hard to connect with others because they can feel that. They can feel your uneasiness. If you walk in feeling overwhelmed and judged, people will judge and avoid you because your lingering dismissal of yourself is detectable.
If you feel confident, you’ll connect with others because you feel comfortable and you’re not worrisome. I know most of us don’t feel confident most or all the time. But if you let your negative thoughts about yourself or others dictate how you arrive, you’ll notice you’ll have a harder time creating connections. You may get lucky and meet someone who’s a super engager and breaks the ice and settles your nerves, but if you always wait for someone like that to help you, you’ll always need someone else to help you feel confident.
If you walk in acting cocky, people will either be drawn to you or find your arrogance intense. Cocky can have a similar impact as charisma, to a point. Your brashness can be an immense turn off, and you might find people avoiding you instead of connecting with you.
How you see yourself carries a density to it and can influence how others see you. All of us carry our own prejudices and judgements, so considering how you carry your energy is a worthwhile insight. How do you want to walk into a room? How would you like people to perceive you?
You don’t have to be in a powerful role to have a powerful impact on your own experience in a new situation. If you’re an introvert (as I am), constantly being in new situations can be exhausting. But I suspect that it’s also heavily used as an excuse not to self-regulate and in avoiding certain situations and people. Getting uncomfortable helps us grow and teaches us how to connect with others.
If you view yourself as someone who can’t hold a conversation, you may want to ask yourself if you’re curious about others. The simplest way to hold your own in a room is to ask questions, to find out more about someone’s life, passions, family, hobbies and ways of thinking. Genuine curiosity is absolutely the most beautiful way to connect with people..
Love to hear your thoughts, as always.
Noelle