When trying to impress someone, you pay attention to what you are saying, how you are saying it and your visual representation. You make sure that you dont say anything offensive. You also make sure that you are wearing something flattering and well suited to the occasion. Impressing someone takes a lot of work. But are you paying attention to your body language and what its saying? Quite often what you are verbally saying is one thing, but your body language is telling a completely different story. This splitting of verbal cues and nonverbal communications can result in confusion, misinterpretations, and sometimes missed opportunities.

Nervousness

It doesnt really matter how confident you sound: if you are acting nervous through your body language, than that perception will override anything you say. Avoid the most common body language signs of nervousness to make sure that what you are saying is being taken seriously.

Fidgety hands
Poor eye contacted
Tapping a foot or swinging a leg
Squirming in your seat
Even if you are feeling nervous during a job interview or while approaching someone you like, if you pay close attention to your body language you can hide that nervousness and make a great impression.

Boredom

Weve all been in the situation where we were listening to someone and were bored out of our minds. Be it a professor, parent or boss, the last thing you want to do in this situation is to portray your boredom through body language. If they know how to read body language at all, they will pick up on your boredom and be insulted or they may come to the conclusion that you are lazy and not suited for the job, promotion, teaching assistant position, or decent grade. By making sure that you arent displaying your boredom through body language, you can save yourself a lot of misery. The following are some nonverbal communication signs of boredom that should be avoided.

Slouching back in your chair
Rolling your eyes
Slumping forward on your elbows
Drumming your fingers
A lot of the time you may not even be aware of what you are doing and what your body language is saying for you. If you dislike a co-worker and cross your arms every time you have to talk to them, they will most likely pick up on your displeasure and could mistake it for hostility. This could, in turn, garner you the reputation of being a difficult co-worker. But the crossing of your arms may be so natural to you that you dont even realize you are doing it.

Studying body language

Knowing exactly what your body language is saying for you can be a tricky thing. In trying to correct and be aware of your body language, you could actually end up coming off as awkward and phony. There are some great on line body language courses http://www.bodylanguageschool.com/body_language_classroom.html that can help you wade through the body language courses are reasonably priced and will not only be invaluable to you in your day to day life, but will also help you to jazz up your resume.

Remember how your mother always used to say, its not what you say but how you say it? The truth of the matter is, its not what you say, but what your body language is saying that counts.