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Manner Monday®: Body Language and Nervous Gestures

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Nervous gestures such as pen popping, hair twirling and nail biting are ‘little things’ that can help you lose credibility faster than anything.  Unfortunately, when someone has a nervous gesture, the person with whom they are communicating often loses focus on the conversation at hand.  The nervous gesture becomes the main attraction and the actual topic gets lost in the inadvertent ‘shuffle’.

Be aware of your gestures throughout the day, you want to appear confident and competent.  Don’t let these subtle little ‘habits’ undermine your authority.  Below are a few of the ‘little things’ that can be misinterpreted as lack of confidence:

  • Biting or chewing fingernails
  • Playing with hair
  • Wringing hands
  • Avoiding eye contact
  • Nervous laughter
  • Drumming fingers
  • Playing with objects
  • Continuously clicking your ink pen
  • Wiggling or fidgeting in your seat
  • Bouncing knees up and down
  • Bouncing foot up and down when legs are crossed
  • Tapping feet  – unless of course you’re in tap class and supposed to be tapping your feet!

You want to be remembered for your self-confidence, poise and polish!

Click to Tweet: You want to be remembered for self-confidence, poise and polish. Not pen-clicking and nervous gestures! #MannerMonday http://bit.ly/nervges

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Thanks for reading!
– Carey Sue


In other news….

Do you know of a 5th-12th grader who would benefit from improved social skills, confidence (the right kind of confidence) and better manners?  We have a few options for them…

Registration for the 2016-2017 Season 5-8th grade programs is open, Click here to register.

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