Being smart and hard at work doesn't necessarily mean that your colleagues or your boss will see you that way either. If you want others to take you seriously, you have to think seriously about the image that you show in front of everyone, starting with your dress and outward appearance, to your speech and body language. But how can you?
In today's article, we are going to look at some effective and scientifically proven strategies to help you achieve this.
1- Go to work early
Studies conducted at the Michael G. Foster College at the University of Washington in the United States showed that employees who arrive early in the office are often perceived by their managers as being more serious about their work, and they often get higher scores on performance appraisals than those who do not. who come late.
2. Learn to say “No”
Make a habit of saying no and saying “no” every now and then. Successful people master the art of turning down requests if they conflict with their plans and agendas. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says that when he wrote to several professors for interviews for the book he was working on at the time, he received a negative response from a third of them, who asserted that they did not have the time to conduct these interviews.
You can sometimes decline your manager's requests as well, but be sure to phrase your refusal correctly. If we assume that your manager at work has assigned you a certain task, but you already have many other tasks, in this case you can refuse this task, but in a smart way, as you can say, for example:
“I am happy to do this task, but accepting it means that the project I am working on now may be postponed to tomorrow, because I had intended to spend the next three hours finishing it. Would you like to postpone this project and start this task?”
The idea here is about not agreeing directly to everything no matter what, even if the rejection is impossible, expressing it in a smart way will make you appear more serious.
3- Keep your writing simple
Resist the urge to use your repertoire of complex vocabulary. A 2012 Princeton study on the consequences of using long words unnecessarily showed that using long and complex vocabulary makes you appear less intelligent in the eyes of readers. A number of sociology theses were selected, replacing long words of more than 9 letters with their shorter equivalents, and then 35 students at Stanford University were asked to read the two versions (original and simplified) and judge the author of each one. As a result, the simplified versions were described as less complex and their writers seemed more intelligent.
4- wear glasses
In a research conducted at the University of Vienna, 76 participants were asked to look at 78 photos of people wearing full frame, rimless and people without glasses and then rate them based on a number of criteria including intelligence and attractiveness, with those with glasses rated as the most intelligent but the least Attractive than those who wear glasses. If you want to look more serious ASAP, then wear glasses!