Body Language: The Universal Language (part 1)
Did you ever play charades as a kid? We rarely did in my home. Anytime we tried, my mom would volunteer to go. She’d stand up and do the same thing:
Mom: *Points to wrist*
Us: “Time!!”
Mom: *Holds out 4 fingers*
Us: *Losing enthusiasm*“For.”
Mom: *Pretends to go to sleep*
Us: *excitement gone*“Bed….”
And in just one turn, my mom ruined charades, and with it, my acting career.
But let’s talk about charades for a quick second. If I asked you to imitate Carmelo Anthony, what would you do? Maybe something like this:
What about imitating Peyton Manning? You’d probably do this:
Certain athletes have identifying characteristics or signature moves that kids on the street spend hours practicing. Whether it is Hakeem’s “Dream Shake” or Curry’s quick-release 3 pointer. We see it and immediately identify the move to that player.
Okay, let’s play another round of charades. Your word is: “Frustration.” How are you going to imitate that? I’m almost certain I can guess. Regardless of sport or performance arena, frustration looks the same. It will be some combination of these things, or all together:
1. Rest hands on head
2. Drop your chin to your chest
3. Shake your head
4. Roll your eyes
5. Cover eyes with hands
6. Crouch down like a baseball catcher
Anyway you show it, you are doing 2 things: making yourself smaller & trying to cover yourself from the eyes of the world. Think I’m blowing smoke? Check out this video of NBA athletes missing wide open lay-ups. Don’t pay attention to the ball, watch the athlete. Watch what they do.
Think this is specific to basketball? Nope. Here are the NFL’s elite players.
I said it earlier and I’ll say it again, regardless of sport or performance arena, frustration looks the same. So why is this important? Because if I asked you to watch all of this on mute with no idea the result of the play, and you only saw their body language, you would know immediately they were experiencing frustration or disappointment. It’s important because it means we can (and DO) send messages with our body that require no words.
That leads me to the last piece for today, what message are you sending to those around you? I want to give you a 7 day challenge to watch your body language and what message you are sending. You get passed over for a promotion at work, what do you do when you hear that news? A guy says yes to a date, how do you react? In a 7 day period, we experience A LOT of things that generate some type of reaction — even small ones. Getting cut off in traffic, an empty box of cereal, an unexpected phone call, favorite team wins/loses; the list goes on and on. So your challenge is to pay attention to it. Identify it. Identify how you show negative emotion and how you show positive emotion. It’s important and it leads us to next week.
Check back in next week where we talk about positive body messages. Namely, unlocking the secrets to confidence.
Jon Osborn is a Sport Psychology Consultant. If you are interested in having him work with you or your team, reach out to him on Twitter @08osborn24 or e-mail precisionmentality@gmail.com
