Posture!

Over the last few days I have done an experiment. The basic premise was that the way you hold your body directly impacts how people react to you. If that is true, then any change, conscious or not to your bearing should alter the reaction of the world at large towards you.

Generally people walk slightly bent forward with the shoulders hunched slightly forward as well. All in all we generally appear more like the bicyclist in the the red shirt than the obviously proud participant in the NYC gay pride parade.

What if, I were to change the way I walk. Quite consciously mimicking a soldier on the parade ground, or for that matter the specimen in the fore-front of the photo above. This should then result directly in an altered reaction of the world toward me.

Now I did this experiment, and I do have some interesting results. The difference is actually more pronounced than I’d have ever thought. An upright posture automatically leads to a perceivable increase in perceived confidence. So simply by walking upright, people believe you are more confident. In addition, the altered reaction of your surroundings actually increases your own confidence. So you basically start a virtuous circle.

Besides that I actually felt the strain in my back muscles for the first two days. After that it became much easier and my general posture improved a bit. I think I’ll keep going.