Can You Fake It Until You Make It? Blog 1 Due May 21st by midnight
Watch the Following TED Video on the Power of Nonverbals
Purposely change your nonverbals for 2 minutes
(positively or negatively) as demonstrated in the above video and blog
about the results.
Well I will have to go with the positive side of this video and going off of what I think we are supposed to do is this, as far as today, I came in to class I may have went to the back of the room showing that I was either in the small scared worried state of mind. When actually I went in the back to show that no matter where I am I can have that positive self-influence on life. Yes I have only lived a short time in life but have been through to much to no that if you sit back and don’t act and think like a champion you will always be on the negative side and struggle to get on the positive side. Which needs to happen to everyone one in awhile because I was that little scared kid that had been made fun of as a child and then realized that I was not different from other kids I just did things differently to my needs and I was actually really smart at certain things such as math and history, I hope this is what you were wanting us to do!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, but I actually have watched this video about 4 days ago. I wanted to try to do what she suggested when I’m nervous. For sure I didn’t want to sit in the position after which I might feel less motivated. I think life is short and full of unexpected stress, so, to add it on purpose is nonsense. Anyway, so far I didn’t’ have a chance to exorcise the positive part of the experiment. More I’m thinking about it, more I’m sure I don’t’ need it. I do what you see on 10:31 min quite often, with one correction – I do not put my feet on the table. In my culture it’s negative behavior and comparison to pigs. If I confused you, or you’d like to know/understand what I mean ask me tomorrow☺. But…, from physiological point of view by putting your feet higher you’ll get more blood flow to your upper body and, sure, your brain. In fact I’m reading C.J’s comment at the moment and sitting with my hands behind my head. I don’t’ know if it makes me more motivated or self-confident, but feels gooooood!
ReplyDeleteWe all show body language. Positive or negative body language can express how someone is feeling. Today in class I wasn’t feeling amazing. I threw out my back working out and was showing pathetic body language. I don’t know if my classmates noticed but I was in pain. I tried my best to make my body language positive by getting up from my desk quickly. Walking as if I was power walking and not showing a slouch made my body language seem positive. Like Amy explained, we should fake it until it becomes us. After faking my positive language for a while, my back didn’t seem to hurt as bad. I was able to give off positive body language without even knowing it. I faked being in good condition until I was in great condition. After giving off my positive body language, my nervous and stress levels about the class dropped. I was suddenly comfortable with the class. Being confident from the get go can help you finish up with great results.
ReplyDeleteI felt this was a great exercise to help my mind and body together in one setting. I tried as she asked do to in the video. At first before trying I felt tired, and somewhat of down because of things going on at home and work. A lot of stress as we all know can make us feel and do things we don’t actually want to do or want to feel like. Not knowing sometimes why didn’t we just relax and breathe instead of fighting our anger in first place would have helped bring positive outcomes. The technique made me feel somewhat of a little more relaxed and deep breathing along with this added helping the process. I feel calmer about some issues I still need to work on at home, but I still have the thought of worries that could come later on this evening at work. Furthermore, I would like to keep practicing this technique and others to help ease my thoughts of any problems I may be going thought or feeling.
ReplyDeleteMy professor sent me this video about a month ago as I was preparing to give a huge presentation to the Biology department on the research I had done during my undergraduate experience. I am naturally quiet-natured in a classroom setting and don’t particularly enjoy speaking in front of large groups of people. The two minutes that I spent before my presentation in a high power pose didn’t make me any less nervous; however it boosted my confidence and allowed me to give the best presentation I have ever given. Amy’s advice to “fake it until you make it” has been especially useful in situations where I am expected to perform at a high level but am feeling tired or down. Finals week was especially challenging for me this past semester because at my university, the seniors have to take their finals a week before everyone else while classes are still going on. I used the high power poses before and during the finals I was most worried about. Those ended up being my highest scores!
ReplyDeleteI have always taken the leadership role (and yes, to be a leader you must know how to follow) and I find it to be one of the reasons why I had an excellent military career especially within the two career fields that I had within the military. Looking back now as I was watching the video I was thinking about my body language as a military cop. When I talked to people who I either outranked or was interrogating I always had my arms crossed or behind my head if I was sitting down. Now, when I would speak to someone who outranked me I would take the more submissive role and show respect with either placing my hands on my laps or if I was standing my hand were behind my back. As a Drill Instructor 95% of my day was me being in charge and everyone answered to me. Due to my position and my rank. The image shown of “Wonder Woman” was something my fellow female instructors would always do with their trainees. Even for the flight photo towards the end of training, I would tell my trainees not to smile and to have their arms crossed because I thought it was the image of toughness. I just tried doing some nonverbal of touching my neck and slouching while talking to my son and he asked me what was wrong. He said I looked sad. So, I think you can definitely fake it but when dealing with those that know you best it might be harder to convince them.
ReplyDeleteI sat in a chair with my hand on my neck to see if it really had a negative affect on me as the video said it would. It made me think about things that bother me and make me feel sorry for myself. I started having sad thoughts. Doing this exercise I realized it is true that if you act the part you can be the part. I need to practice the positive part of this exercise in more real life situations. If I act more confident I will be more confident and it will show verses me having to tell someone "I am a confident person".
ReplyDeleteI think that nonverbal plays a big role in communicating. Your nonverbal actions really show how you feel about your confidence, attitude and emotion. Its hard not to use nonverbal communication because your words mean more when you actually use facial expression, gestures and eye contact. For me when i am in an environment that I am not familiar with my gestures are usually small ones. For example when i am in a new class i tend to be nervous so i feel that i always need to doing something. I am usually always popping my fingers or scratching my legs. And i don't always have to be nervous when i do this, it also has to deal with how comfortable I am or when I am around strangers.
ReplyDeleteEven though i do these things i still have positive facial expressions, keep eye contact and have correct posture. Depending on your posture it really affects your confidence and attitude towards the topic.
Nonverbal communication to my surpriseis actually a huge factor in our lives. This video brought to my attention the importance of nonverbal communications such as gestures,eye contact, posture, hand lanuage, facal ezpressions, and more. The presence some one has, if they are authentic, comfortable, captivating, enthusiastic, confident, and passionate, the individual will bring their true selves to table. And thats what the lady in the video stresses is that confidence is key and faking that you are confident will present you with an advanatge esspecailly in the job setting. If your core identify is taken away from you it makes you feel less confident or even insignificant or lost. the whole 'fake it and become it' concept for me is a little difficult to accept. Like the speaker and the girl she mentions at Harverd i felt i wsnt suppose to be here and i know when you actually come to terms with the fact that maybe you are eactly where you are meant to be. i am a faith oreinted person and i do pray. well like those two ladies I have a hard time with at first feeling defeat or helpless. like her i had an accident i founf myself relating to her quite well. i believe that when i talk i use good eye contact to epress my intention to make the people around me feel that i am in tone with them. also my hand gesture give a sence i have passion for my topic and posture is important like the people used in her eperiment, standing sraight with authority or power makes me feel confident and owerful. her tips to be powerful and trying her same techniques give me enough confidence and throuh my soroirty life and majors i just told myself i have to do this and like her i am beleiving/becoming it/confident. She has gave me great pointers i plan to continue using throughout life.
ReplyDeleteIf you ask anyone who has ever known me chances are they will probably tell you that I’m a very introverted person. Maybe it’s just naturally part of my nature to be like this, but being Asian and feeling like the black sheep among my friends and in society, and growing up with a family with strict standards really did not help my self esteem. Everytime I leave my house I feel like I’m taken out of my comfort zone. In social settings and when I have to interact with people who I’m not very familiar with, I tend to slouch, cross my arms, not make eye contact, and feel a lot of anxiety. People have straight up told me before, “it seems like you hate everyone” and “I thought you were rude when I first met you,” which can be kind of upsetting sometimes. The one place where I’ve tried the fake it til you make it mentality is my job at Dave and Busters, a place “that is all about fun” and guest interaction, so you can imagine how difficult it can be for me. Everytime I go in I try to put up a front and give everyone fake smiles, talk in a warm, friendly tone, make sure I’m not crossing my arms, etc. I think having that fake it til you make it attitude does work, but it can really get tiring sometimes, especially since the people who come to our place can be exasperating to deal with. After watching this video, however, it honestly helped me realize the importance of having this mentality because I’m basically seen as an adult now and I don’t always want to be known as that quiet nervous girl for the rest of my life. It’s not going to be easy but I hope that one day I can become secure and get to where I want to be.
ReplyDeleteThis video definitely provided great food for thought. I agree that your body actually can change your mind and vice versa. How you think and how you act should go hand in hand. Personally I tend to pay close attention to detail of nonverbal communication because I’m a firm believer that “actions speak louder than words.” Whether it be for a positive situation or negative, a facial expression or series of hand gestures could provide a significant amount of emotion, reason, motive, or simply an explanation to someone’s argument or statement. Even through intrapersonal communication, if you don’t have the confidence in yourself to accomplish something then more than likely you won’t, or at least fail to meet the standards you would’ve preferred. My Pastor recently commented that “You can’t live a positive life with a negative mind,” yes it’s fairly simple but the depth of that mere statement is substantial. If you feel insecure, your body language will mirror what your mind is transmitting it to do so and vice versa. It’s like a cycle though, if you test out a ‘power pose’ and see how you feel after 2 minutes and suddenly your mindset has changed to confident, uplifting, and inspired then it’d only be logical to practice those habits until it became a routine. I know I’d much rather be exciting, bold, and confident as opposed to insecure, worried, and overly concerned with others interpretations of myself.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who is usually extremely introverted when in a classroom setting or around people I don’t know very well, I do find myself typically sitting or standing in the “low power” poses Amy Cuddy showed examples of in her talk. I never thought to consider what effect these nonverbals had on how I feel about myself, how I do in my classes or how I come off to others. I’m an art major and with that comes critiques, which I dread. In every class whenever a project is due, I have to stand up in front of my peers, show them what I’ve been working on, explain to them the process and the reasoning and the meaning behind it and basically give them free range to critique my work. It’s the only thing I don’t like about my major. Using the power pose techniques discussed in this video will definitely be something I can do really quickly before my classes on critique days that will make me feel less nervous and overall less self-conscious about myself and my work. Who knows, I may even speak up and critique someone else’s work before I graduate, if I continue using power poses to “fake it until I make it” and actually try to become someone not quite as introverted.
ReplyDeleteI honestly do think that nonverbal communication is extremely powerful. This can be applied to many situations especially social situations. The way your body language is, what you're doing on the outside can either give somebody a "good" impression about you or a "bad" one. This video was interesting to me because it sounded very familiar. My Psychology professor discussed what Amy was saying how our bodies change our minds, our minds change our behavior etc. He said that it's like a cycle as she stated. However you see yourself or however you're feeling in that certain situation tends to show on the outside and even if you're faking it it tends to EVENTUALLY show on the outside as well. An example of how I've related to this numerous times would be the fact of where i work is BIG on customer service. The way that we're "supposed" to act is we are required to make that customer feel as welcome and as comfortable and happy as possible which requires smiling, interacting, being friendly, etc. There have of course been days where i don't feel like doing any of the things i just mentioned and I "fake" it by FORCING myself to smile, talk in a friendly happy tone and although i don't feel happy at first but if i'm there 7 hours in one day it does tend to change my mentality at least for that day that it can make me forget i was upset that day or however I was feeling. I think this fake it till you make it mentality really is true. If you can get yourself to act in a certain manner and if you do it for so long it can tend to stick with you whether it's POSITIVELY or NEGATIVELY.
ReplyDeleteI have been playing drums for the majority of my life. I have developed in the way I play enough to have been sought after by the music department at a rather large church near the area. However, I have felt more timid in the way I communicate with the directors and musicians because I feel that I lack the knowledge and skills they possess, as many of them have majored in music theory and have been doing this longer than I have lived. I implemented the techniques discussed in the video 2-3 minutes prior to meeting them today and noticed a significant difference regarding my communication with my superiors. I felt far more confident while speaking to them, confident enough to suggest changes and meet new people. Additionally, I felt that I was far more confident while drumming. Just goes to show that a good self-esteem and self-worth can affect your relationships, as well as your hobbies.
ReplyDeleteI’ve always been told by my mother that whenever I’m sad, I should force myself to smile, and, that eventually, I’ll actually be happier. I my experience, it works, so I don’t find nonverbal communication affecting our moods and self-esteem so strange. I like to think of myself as confident, but I’ve noticed today that I tend to shrink into myself a lot. To be honest, I’m not sure if it’s because I’m actually a very shy person, or it’s because I was just tired and cold today. I tend to keep my legs crossed often, one arm is usually around my waist, and the other either in my hair or along my neck and face. After trying out a few of these techniques, I found myself more energized- in fact, I was somewhat struggling to get myself to finish writing this blog post, but after I used the techniques, I had the energy I need to get my fingers to type this! I felt more confident and energized, almost in a “Let’s do this!” mode. I’ll definitely be trying these techniques before tests and presentations.
ReplyDeleteThere is a show on National Geographic every Monday called “Going Ape” that basically relates primate and human behavior. One episode is called “Fake it to Make it” (and there is no way that’s a coincidence), in which a stunt man, whom has worked on movies like “Planet of the Apes”, gives random people lessons on ape body language. To make it short: The group that was taught poses of power was more daring and reckless than the group who was taught to be submissive.
Here’s a link to a 2-minute video from this episode that goes over the experiment: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/going-ape/videos/fake-it-to-make-it/
As for myself being an introvert i can say that I have in some ways progressed in trying to be less of an introvert. I can somewhat relate when people assume something totally different than who you really are because I have been told many times that I look like a mean, stuck up person when people first see me. I guess because of my facial expressions.
ReplyDeleteWhen interacting with people I have just met, I do tend to look down, make no eye contact and usually i am quiet. I would say i get most comfortable around a new person when i see that the person is really trying to get to know me and keep a conversation. I am not the type of person to approach someone and introduce myself only because I have the mentality that everyone is criticizing me when i see them looking at me and being the shy person I am I would say makes it a bit more difficult. Once i get comfortable around someone I get more comfortable being myself. I can say that working at a convenience store I did fake it until I made it because when working at a convenience store or anywhere else you have interpersonal or communication, its your job to make the customers feel welcomed, by doing that you have to smile, be friendly and greet them by not doing that they may get the impression that you're being rude,so being in that type of situation i did change to where I would not have to force myself to smile, be friendly or greet customers. I would say optimism is the key when a person is in a negative mood.
Today was actually one of those days for me... I woke up late, got pulled over for speeding, and got a flat tire all in one day. I finally made it home feeling completly depressed and so unmotivated to do this assignment. Then I watch the video, and came to relieze that all day I had been protraying all the negative poses that she spoke about in the video. Which being Downer Debbie generally is not my fortake; I am a very positive, motivating and confident person but after the beating I took today and watching the video I came to relieze how I was sloching, crossing my arms and feeling negetive about everything. Therefore I would have to agree with her when she says that body language does have alot to do with what you protray to others and reflect upon yourself. I did a two minute power pose and it completely changed my take on today's situation. I feel like tomorrow shall be another day, there isn't an issue I can't handle and at least I had a spare. LOL
ReplyDeleteGrowing up I was always the shy girl in every class, I have never gotten over it due to the way I perceived myself. People would tell I was really shy , so I started believing what people said.I have always feared speaking in front of people since I was a child, I thought It would always go wrong from previous experiences. So I grew up fearing public speaking, but a job opportunity gave me the ability to lose some of my fear. So, I was offered a job as a trainer at Sea World, which requires you to train other employees in large groups. I had to become this person I was not, someone confident, fearful , loud and develop leadership characteristics. Well I can say you can fake it until you make it, I don't know how but I did it. I became this person with characteristic, I did not even know I had. It's really weird because I actually stood in front of a mirror changing minor things about me like fixing my posture, telling myself I could do it and boosting my confidence. I can't say I have completely lost the fear of speaking in public , but I have progressed significantly.
ReplyDeleteYes, I do believe that our nonverbal communication does affect how we feel about ourselves. For example, a few years ago when I was told that I would be moving to Texas from California my sense of self changed instantaneously because I felt my identity, that I had built there, was being stripped and taken away from me. Unfortunately, I am a very stubborn person, especially in dealing with my parents, but who isn’t? So I made it known to them how unhappy I was. This negative mentality about moving back to Texas reflected through my body language, I always had a sourpuss looking face, I slouched when I walked, and I hardly spoke to anyone. It got to a point where people would tell me to, “Smile a little,” which upset me even more. When I entered my new high school, I already displayed the “I don’t care” mentality in which I dissociated myself from others; I became the shy girl that never spoke or “The Wallflower.” College gave this “brooding teenager” a chance to reinvent her whole attitude, and she did. The smallest things, such as, smiling for once, walking upright with an air of confidence, and knowing in my mind that I could survive interacting with people began a transformation that has lasted since then. I was no longer the scared, mad, brooding high-schooler who hated life, instead, a confident college student who had a lot of positive things going for her. I did “fake it and became it” as Amy demonstrated in her lecture. Her power pose exercise does come in handy; I utilized it today because I was nervous about meeting my significant other’s friends for the first time. I sat in a power pose for two minutes in my car before meeting up with them, and it helped me not stress over what was going to happen. Rather, to just be confident and hope for the best, and “Whatta’ you know?” the meeting went extremely well. Whenever, I am feeling down or nervous, I will utilize this useful, positive trick.
ReplyDeleteConfidence does have a lot to do with non-verbal communication. For some reason people can sense whether or not others have assurance in their own abilities, kind of like how predators can sense prey in the animal kingdom. But where as animals have natural adaptations (bright colors, feathers to puff up, etc.) to make them seem more than what they are we humans have non-verbal queues i.e. body language. In the clip the speaker reveals several body positions that express dominance or confidence in the situation, and I feel that she does have a point in that if a person fakes it until they make it, they person will eventually become “it” because if you pretend to know what your doing so often you will start to actually know what your doing. A personal example would be when I was first hired as a face painter at SeaWorld I had never painted faces they only hired me because I drew well, so in he beginning I stood in the back not getting a lot of customers until my manager said to me “Layla you have to have confidence pretend you’ve been doing this for years!” I didn’t think faking it would change anything, but I faked it any way and now not only do I have confidence in my abilities I also know exactly what I am doing!
ReplyDeleteGreat comments! Nice start with the blogs:)
ReplyDelete