Hey stranger
It's pretty much impossible nowadays to read on socializing or networking without seeing the magical word - make great eye contact.
Want a girlfriend? Fine, it's all about the eye contact on the first date.
Wanna nail an interview? Just make great eye contact and build rapport.
Wanna impress a stranger? Make superb eye contact already!
Wanna win a million dollar? Yes! Eye contact
While most of these claims are more myth than fact, eye contact is indeed valuable.
Those Hollywood movies and blog articles have a point. Great Eye contact makes you memorable and charismatic which is always a good thing.
If you lack good eye contact skills, then your people skills is gonna take a serious hit.
And you know what happens after that.
Now lets try to avoid that, this article will walk you through how to make your eye contact less horrible. that.
Now lets try to avoid that, this article will walk you through how to make your eye contact less horrible.
1. DON'T DO A SCAN
Ever seen a movie in which the scene starts by showing the feet and then moves slowly upwards to the face?
Never ever ever do that with your eyes! (especially with the opposite sex)
When you scan people, their subconscious interprets it as you picturing them naked, and since we introverts that love doing this have wild imagination, scanning brings a mischievous grin onto our faces.
When your scannee sees this grin and your vile intention, you have already pissed them off before you finally make the eye contact.
So honestly don't scan, go straight to the eye.
2. TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND RELAX
Ever heard the sage saying; "Don't try too hard!"
Trying too hard is bad, it makes you too self conscious which then makes you appear fake.
I can remember when I started learning all these skills, I was self conscious to a fault and it drove strangers away as I'm always screening my action to fit what the experts said.
But this makes me look fake and everyone hates fake people. They hated my guts and people literally ran out on me. The awkwardness was legendary.
You mustn't fall into this stupid same trap! Try not to try too hard, when you see that you are getting nervous, take a very long and deep breath and center yourself in the moment.
Relax and know that your anxiousness is okay because you're trying to master a new skill.
3. PUT A SUBTLE SMILE ON YOUR FACE
Another big mistake with eye contact is the smile. This is a scenario in which too little or too much ruins everything.
When you are in a conversation, you must avoid frowning immediately or beaming up for no reason.
While it's okay to smile immediately you meet someone, it's downright stupid and insincere to paint a huge smile on your face as you guys talk. And it's worse if you frown too.
The killer is the sweet middle - a gentle and subtle smile; turn the corner of your mouth a little bit and relax the muscles around your eye as you make the eye contact.
Take a look at charismatic figures - Tony Robbins, Bill Clinton, Obama, will smith, you'll realize there is always a subtle grin on their faces as they make eye contact.
This is easier said than done. You might have an habit of frowning so you have to consciously rectify this. Put that little BADASS smile on.
4. FOCUS ON ONE EYE
It can be distracting trying to focus on both eyes at the same time, and luckily you don't have to.
I got a tip from a author some years back that really helped - it's to focus on one eye at a time.
So instead of splitting your attention into looking at both eyes, you look at one for an extended period of time and then you switch to the next eye.
Then you break eye contact and repeat the cycle. Yeah I know, sounds unnatural but after a few months of practice, it become second nature to me. I do it now on impulse and you can too.
If you are comfortable looking at both eyes, it's fine however I realize it distracts and makes me flutter my eyes left and right which makes me look creepy.
So go with what works best!
One eye at a time!
5. BREAK YOUR GAZE TO NOD AND MAKE OTHER GESTURES WHILE LISTENING
This is also about not trying too hard, you see there are two types of gazing - the dead gaze and the lively gaze.
A dead gaze is that - just dead. You simply stare like a moron injected with a muscle relaxation drug. It's stupid and makes the other person uncertain whether you are really listening.
A life gaze is also that - lively. As you maintain eye contact, you show that you listen by nodding your head, dropping comments, asking questions etc.
You need to bring life to your eye contact, feel free to break the gaze to drop a comment, laugh or do whatever you wanna do.
6. HOLD THE EYE CONSCIOUSLY WHEN YOU ARE TALKING
Ahhh! Here comes the hard part. It's really hard to keep eye contact when you are talking as we have programmed ourselves to look elsewhere.
So here is where self awareness and deliberation comes in.
Studies shows that the most charismatic people maintain eye contact for 60-80% of the length of the conversation.
So if you keep the eye to just when you are listening, you won't get far.
This means you need to consciously be aware of your urge to know the design of the ceiling and the identity of who just came in, and then choose to return back to keeping the eye contact (and don't forget to smile).
This is also easier said than done, but with practice you can train yourself to do this naturally.
7. PICK ONE PERSON IN THE AUDIENCE
But what if you wanna make a presentation? Well then the biggest error you can make is making eye contact with everyone.
When you have got an audience, the way to kill it is to pick out a person in the audience and focus your gaze directly on him and then move to another person and so on until you finish your speech.
This is what popular speakers do and it has being cataloged several times over the decades.
The audience of these popular speakers are fond of saying they felt like the speaker was speaking directly to them. And that was exactly what happened - the speaker did speak directly to them.
8. OBSERVE FOR DISCOMFORT
Took me years to learn this but you need to know that everyone's tolerance for eye contact is different.
Right now I can enter anywhere and gaze into people's eyeball however it's not always a great strategy for making friends.
Some people gets pissed off by it while others respect my confidence. You need to put this in mind as you make eye contact with strangers.
You should always watch for when your partner breaks of the eye contact intentionally. You should then reduce the length of the eye contact so the person can feel comfortable with you.
Try not to be overbearing with the eye contact when the other person isn't okay with it.
9. TAKE IT SLOW
I know you just want to jump from shy eyes to magnificent eyes, fuck! Who doesn't want that.
But I'm going to be real with you, change takes time.
So take it slow, go out to practice, learn from your mistakes, give it time and keep it going.
And..
Just don't forget to smile.
