How to Feel Comfortable Making Eye Contact

Do you suffer from shyness? Do you have problems making eye contact during meetings, social situations, or interviews? This article can teach you how to make eye contact in any situation. This article will give you exercises you can do to help you learn to make eye contact and to maintain it during times of need.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• people
• camcorder
• confidence
• friends

1. The first step in practicing eye contact is to ask, watch, and practice. The first mistake people generally make is that they make great eye contact when performing an interview, meeting, or social encounter.

2. The second step would be to ask others if you are actually making good eye contact with them and if you are maintaining it throughout your conversation. If they say that you are maintaining good eye contact, ask them when does it occur: was it during speaking, listening, or both.

3. The third step is to watch yourself. Pretend to carry on a conversation while videotaping yourself or stand in front of a long stand up mirror while maintaining eye contact with yourself. If you videotape yourself make sure to have someone do it when you are not aware of it so you can see exactly how you make eye contact and for how long.

4. The final step is to sit down with a friend or co-worker and practice making eye contact with them until you feel that you are comfortable making good, continuous eye contact as well as maintaining it throughout the conversation.

Tips & Warnings

• maintain eye contact for at least 70 percent of the encounter
• a quick test to ensure that you are making eye contact with a person long enough ... test yourself to see if you can remember their eye color
• looking to long into someone's eyes may cause them to feel uncomfortable