Power Posing Challenge.

Five years ago (2018),when I arrived in China, I had an idea to challenge students to step out of their comfort zone to boost their confidence. This idea came to me during a Professional Development class. I have since proposed this challenge to many students and received positive feedback. Although the task was nerve-wracking for some, students reported feeling a sense of accomplishment and gaining confidence. This experience can be applied to situations in life where we avoid trying new things because we feel uncomfortable. For example, boys may be hesitant to talk to a girl they find attractive, missing out on a potential friendship or relationship. The challenge aims to help individuals increase their confidence by trying new things, becoming more comfortable with rejection, and improving social skills. Personally, I also became less shy and improved my life in China by taking on this challenge. I have included some pictures I used as slides in my class to illustrate the challenge.

The reason I am writing again about this subject, is because the questions on how to improve oneself keeps coming from students who wants to get better in their performance, they keep asking me things like, how can I do better in exams, job interviews, talking to girl, to get a girlfriend etc. If you notice all those requests has to do with people skills, and to have more confidence goes a long way to improve someone success. This is not a magic pill, it is a process that if you keep working on it, you will get better.

So what is a Power Posing Challenge?  POWER POSING CHALLENGE is to take 3 pictures with a stranger in power posing posture.  The rational is demonstrated in the next picture, where I talk about the feedback loop. 

If you wanted to learn more about the science behind this challenge you can read my paper: “Review of Body Language Posture, and an Exercise Called “Power Posing Challenge” to Improve One’s Confidence” from the ICSSED 2020 conference in China.

Next picture is the story how it happen for me to get my pictures in power posing with a stranger. I start asking people in the morning when I went to police bureau to renew my stay in China, and that was not a very good idea because a foreigner asking to take a picture in the police station seems a little bit suspicious, but anyway after getting a “NO” I did not get discourage and kept asking people to see if I would get my challenge done, I did get 2 more rejection in a row before someone agree take the picture with me.

Here in the next picture is when I got someone who said “'YES”  and agree to take a picture with me in a “power posing posture”.

Sometimes I get an objection from my students when I pose a challenge to them. They say it is easier for me to do that because I am a foreigner in China and hardly people would reject me when I approach them. I reply to them: That is nonsense and I did even record a video that I put in YOUKU / YOUTUBE of me getting some rejections, to prove that was not the case. Click the link to watch those videos, go to 11:30 on the video and see me get rejected.

I Hope you enjoyed this article, and also hope you did get some insight on how you can apply this to yourself to improved as well, I do have more material if you wish to keep learning, you can see my course on people skills, and also read the my amazing adventure in China as a teacher.

Article by Marcelo Gameiro

Published 28 Apr 2023