Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Maia Herring

A couple of years ago, my mom gave me the book Presence by Amy Cuddy. At that point, I had seen Cuddy’s TED Talk, “Your body language may shape who you are.” I understood the concept — a person’s posture can affect their attitude, thus affecting their confidence, how others perceive them, and their performance in many areas. Basically, when a person assumes an expansive stance, he or she feels powerful and confident and is more prepared to succeed as a result. I thought this message was remarkable and compelling, but I did not have much interest in reading any more about it. I understood the gist of it.

However, Cuddy’s book goes beyond just “power posing” and discusses many other aspects of self-confidence. I learned this when I decided to pick the book up recently because I realized that I could really benefit from it at the moment.

In the past year, I left a comfortable job, traveled abroad for a few months, and moved to a new city to change careers. Although I knew it would be a big year for me, all of these changes shook my world more than I expected. Despite all of the excitement of traveling and starting fresh in a new place, I felt more fear and anxiety than I initially imagined I would.

After living in New York City for five years, I decided to teach English in Paris for three months and move to Austin to start a UX Design training program when I returned to the U.S. I always thought that if I could live in New York City, any other place wouldn’t seem so scary. However, I found that living in unfamiliar places created crippling anxiety for me, due to language barriers and culture shock, and caused me to set unreasonable constraints on my daily life.

The anxiety had varying effects for me. When I went for a walk in the park in Austin, it caused me to shy away from saying hello to strangers. In Paris, it held me back from entering some stores or going to restaurants by myself at times. At first, I identified this problem as purely anxiety-driven, but I met people in both Paris and Austin who pointed out that it was a self-confidence issue at its core.

In these moments, I was able to make excuses for my lack of confidence: people in Texas were “too nice” and I didn’t need to be equally as friendly, or I would have been more confident if French people automatically knew that I was a tourist and spoke to me in English. I blamed my experiences on the situation and the environment, concluding that I would be more confident under different circumstances. However, when I acknowledged that low self-confidence could have implications for my design career, I knew that it was time to stop making excuses and to give Cuddy’s book a read.

Below are three concepts from Presence that have offered a lot of insight as I learn a new set of skills and embark on a new career.

1. “Impostorism steals our power and suffocates our presence.”

Impostorism, also known as Impostor Syndrome, is “the general feeling that we don’t belong — that we’ve fooled people into thinking we’re more competent and talented than we actually are” (Cuddy, 2015). It causes people to doubt themselves and their accomplishments and to worry constantly that others will judge them.

I had heard about Impostorism before, but it seems to come up more frequently in my life now that I am in the design field. I’ve read blog posts by other UX Designers that mention Impostorism, and I’ve heard it mentioned by successful designers at networking events.

It seems that designers are susceptible to Impostorism because we create products that others use, leaving our work open to judgment. This is different from most other work I’ve done, and it’s still strange to me that I have concrete deliverables to show for my work and that those deliverables are intended for interaction with humans.

To that point, I now have a portfolio online, and it’s hard for me to believe that I designed a website that displays my work. As weird as it is, though, I understand the importance of acknowledging my accomplishments and hard work rather than falling victim to Impostorism.

2. Being confident means feeling that you have the power to occupy space and speak slowly.

The idea behind power posing is that people feel powerful when they take up a lot of space because they feel entitled to that space. This finding has been helpful for me, as I understand that if I adopt an expansive posture before giving a presentation, I will be more confident and able to assert my ideas.

What is more interesting, however, is that Cuddy found that people who feel powerful tend to talk more slowly and take more pauses when they speak. They feel that they are entitled to their listeners’ time, so they do not rush to get through what they have to say.

One recurring point of feedback that I have received throughout my design course is that I speak too quickly during presentations. Although I am aware of the issue, I still get nervous before every presentation and continue to make the same mistake. I now recognize that if I slowed down, I would avoid skipping ahead and later wasting time backtracking on my explanations. In future presentations, I hope to feel more confident and powerful and thus become more articulate. Understanding the connection between speaking pace and power is key to improving my presentation style.

3. Slowing down and taking breaks is a power move.

Rather than feeling like we always need to be making improvements to our work, Cuddy states that we should have the power to set our work aside and do nothing every now and then. She says that powerful people feel that they have the freedom to take a step back rather than letting their work control them. By doing nothing, people can recharge and view their work with fresher eyes so they don’t make unnecessary or inadequate “fixes.”

I have found this concept to be particularly applicable in design work. While I’ve finally found a field where I love the work and I could devote endless hours to a project, when I need a break from my work, I need a break from my work. Perhaps I expend more energy on design work because I really care about it. All I know is that, for the first time, I feel strong urges to go for a run, chat with a friend, or just watch Netflix when I get too deep into a project. I guess I’ve been making power moves without even knowing it, and that’s a reassuring sign that I feel empowered by my design work.

Cuddy’s book has been particularly helpful for me as I start out in a new city and enter a new field. Even though I made powerful moves to change my life and gain new experiences earlier this year, I still felt powerless, and that kept me from taking full advantage of my opportunities. With the knowledge I’ve gained from Presence, I hope to change my outlook and my behavior. Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned from the book is that we should reframe our anxiety so that it becomes excitement for what’s to come.

The Book that has Helped Me Through My Recent Career Change was originally published in prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Book that has Helped Me Through My Recent Career Change

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