The key to making a good first impression has a lot to do with your confidence. Of course, this quality doesn’t come naturally for all of us. We need to work on building it through learning and experience. Feeling confident isn’t always necessary – simply being able to show it is often all you need to be convincing.

The way you present yourself, from your body language to the way you speak is subconsciously noticed by those around you. This immediately gives someone an impression of the type of person you are. If you lack confidence, this can be detrimental in many cases.

Earning respect from friends, nailing job interviews, and attracting the opposite sex are some of the many situations where having confidence is to your advantage. The most common situation where people lack confidence is approaching someone, especially if that person doesn’t know you.

Approach Anxiety

The rush of emotions you experience when approaching a stranger can be difficult to overcome. Your stomach gets butterflies, your chest tightens as your heart starts racing, and your muscles tense up. Before you know it, your insecurities get the best of you.

You feel inadequate, unattractive, and struggle to find the right words to say. After all, you don’t want to give the wrong impression or make the person feel uncomfortable. Getting over this can be difficult. You know these thoughts aren’t true, but fear often overpowers your ability to do anything about it.

But nothing’s worse than attempting to approach someone and walking away out of fear. Your feelings of insecurity are replaced by regret, and you feel like you’ve wasted an opportunity that you’ll never get again. This is approach anxiety, and it’s something almost all of us experience.

Luckily, overcoming it isn’t all that difficult. By following the below steps, you’ll be able to walk and talk with confidence in no time.

Being Conscious of Fear

When speaking to someone, our mind automatically leads us to avoid whatever may be causing fear or anxiety. This includes avoiding eye contact, trying to remain unnoticed and shutting ourselves off from others by doing things like crossing our arms.

These attempts to avoid fear come off as exactly that – a lack of confidence. To overcome this, we need to notice and take control of our fear before it’s too late. Being aware of the way you feel and that these feelings are irrational is key.

Reversing Fear

Trying to fight the fear will only bring out your emotions and lead you nowhere. Instead, you need to take notice of the fear and embrace it. Wherever the fear tells you not to go, is where you go. Maintain eye contact, open yourself up and speak with an audible and consistent tone.

This helps you gain control of your emotions and use fear to your advantage. By getting your body more used to fear, you can remain conscious of the way you present yourself and correct any errors in your body language or tone. Of course, knowing is only half the battle. It takes practice and perhaps a few unsuccessful attempts to get it right.

Practice makes Perfect

You don’t have to have an elaborate pickup line, witty reference or hilarious joke as your opener. If anything, this can go terribly wrong. The right way is much simpler. Walk towards the person and greet them. This is a neutral approach that will always work.

The person you’re approaching will already have a good impression of you for being able to approach them and offer a casual greeting. From there, it all comes down to making good conversation. And as long as you stay interested, you’ll appear interesting.

People love talking about themselves. This is why the best way to have a conversation with someone you don’t know is to keep asking questions. Ensure that your questions are in the context of the topic being discussed and that they’re open-ended. Yes/no questions inevitably lead to an awkward silence, which is never good.

Know Your Stuff

It is a little different when it comes to interacting with people who work in the service industry, such as waiters and barmen. Here it comes down to just being friendly and polite. And if you don’t want to look like a fool in front of friends, ensure that you know what you’re talking about.

For example, if you’re at a bar and you want to order a drink, be sure that you know how to order exactly what you want. If you want to know how to order a martini, head to the link and do a bit of reading. It’s that simple. Naturally, one cannot know everything and it’s never the wrong time to ask a question.

Presentation Is Key

As we learned earlier, being in control of your body language and tone can make you appear more confident than you really are. The basics like maintaining eye contact, keeping your hands and legs still, standing a comfortable distance from who you’re talking to, and giving a warm smile when appropriate are fairly easy to learn.

As you gain experience, you can learn more small ways of getting a stranger to feel comfortable around you. This includes delicate body language techniques like tilting your head and, in the case of attracting the opposite sex, slightly parting your lips to indicate that you want to kiss.

The fate of your job interview or next big business deal is often decided at the moment you introduce yourself. When meeting someone, greet them and state your name with a warm smile on your face and maintain eye contact while giving a stern handshake.

Conclusion

It will take a few attempts and mistakes before you’re able to fully overcome approach anxiety. Those looking to make an impression on the opposite sex should always keep in mind that there is plenty of fish in the sea and that one failure doesn’t mean the end of the world. Chances are, you’ll meet another someone new in the foreseeable future.