Brilliant Confidence

CHAPTER 3

How do you

come across?

‘It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s

eyes.’

Sally Field, American actress

Have you ever thought about how people perceive you? I mean

seriously thought about it? It’s true that we all wonder what

people think of us every now and then. But it’s also true that

we tend to wonder this through curiosity rather than for any

constructive reason.

Getting to the bottom of how people perceive you is one of the

essential elements of understanding how you come across to

them. Once you know this, you can start to think about adapting

your behaviour so that their perception of you is what you want it

to be. To feel confident, you need to

know how you look and sound; you

need to know how you come across.

You need to know how to control

peoples’ perceptions of you.

Does it really matter what others think of you?

‘Who cares what people think of me!’ These might sound like the

words of a confident person and to an extent the person is right

to think like that. It’s true that confident people don’t worry as

much as others might about what people think of them and how

to feel confident, you

need to know how you

look and sound

62 brilliant confidence

they come across. It’s fine to think like this and be independent

minded but it’s dangerous to discount other people’s percep-

tions of you completely.

To feel truly confident, it’s important to understand the concept

of perception and to take account of it when communicating.

You need to be aware of people’s perceptions of you but not let

this cloud your judgement. If you let the concept of perception

get the better of you, you could start to become paranoid.

People who disregard others’ perceptions of them are missing

a trick. It really does matter what people think and how they

perceive you – but it shouldn’t be the be all and end all. The

reality of life is that most people can’t help but be affected by

other people’s impressions of them and therefore how people

react to them. This in fact is a positive thing if considered con-

structively. The important point to remember is that if you can

control others’ perceptions of you, you can control how they

react to you.

Bear in mind that it can work the other way too. Most people

who lack self-confidence make the presumption that people per-

ceive them to lack confidence because of the way they look and

act. This is not necessarily the case. Other people may in fact see

you as a confident person! So – keep an open mind.

brilliant

example

Claudette

Claudette walked into the room at the beginning of a confidence-building

course. She sat down and looked comfortable straight away, even though

she hadn’t met any of the other people there before.

Each person introduced themselves and explained why they had come.

Claudette explained very confidently that she had no self-confidence at

all. She said she felt embarrassed whenever she had to talk to a group