Which "you' are they seeing?Welcome to the Discipline of Dating series. If you haven’t read the introduction and started Stage 1, read those before you continue.
Remember, this series is meant to give you ALL of the tools necessary to create dramatic results in your dating life.
Only one thing; you have to take action.
Now that you have an understanding of who you and what your values are, let’s see if that’s what you project.
We go out with our clients to see how congruent they are with how they want to present themselves. As a strategist, this is where the breakthrough comes in for so many of my clients.
But, I can’t do that for everyone who is reading this, so we’re going to change it up a bit.
You’ll need your journal and a camera (or webcam).
Among the many things I help my clients with, one of the more important things is developing awareness of what they are doing, both right and wrong.
We all have things we do subconsciously. The issue is we don’t know when we’re doing those things and if they’re turning off the people you are interacting with.
For example, you may fidget your body in a certain way. Maybe you hold your glass up to your chest (I’d say 90% of people do this unknowingly). Maybe you play with your straw in your glass, the napkin or coaster at the bar in a weird way.
Most of these things happen when you’re nervous. At that point, your body turns its defense mechanism on and resorts to doing something that can make you more comfortable and relaxed.
Unfortunately, it works against your favor.
But it doesn’t end at just body language. Are the clothes you wear congruent with what you want to project?
Maybe you have an athletic body and your clothes are too big? Maybe you put on a few pounds and are still trying to rock that tight graphic tee from your earlier, lighter years.
Chances are you don’t know what type of message you’re sending. And I bet if you knew some of the things that give you a negative image of yourself, you’d want to change them as soon as possible.
This is where you’ll find those things out.
Using your camera (or webcam), record yourself and speak as if you’re telling someone about yourself. Pretend the person you’re talking to has no clue who you are and speak for a minute. Make sure you are standing when you're doing this.
Remember, who you are is all about how you carry yourself. When you record yourself, you get to see what everyone else sees.
When I did this for the first time, I was shocked to hear my voice. I sounded completely different than what I thought. That was just one of many things I noticed.
I asked a few standup comedians about how they practice and they told me they spend most of their preparation and practice time in front of a mirror and camera.
This automatically gets them to be aware of the message they are sending to the people who will eventually be listening to their routine.
The best part is that you can watch it over and over again. I guarantee you won’t notice everything you don’t like about your presentation the first time you watch the video.
Video puts you in the spotlight and gets rid of anything fallacies you’ve created in your head about how you carry yourself.
Face that reality, then you’ll be on your way to making the necessary changes.
As you watch the video, take notes on the way you talk, your hand gestures, your grooming, how you’re dressed, facial expressions, etc. Think about what these things are actually communicating.
Write in your journal what you would say about that person as if you saw him walking down the street or in a coffee shop.
Done? Awesome, let's check out the last Action Item for Stage 1.