One of the easiest ways you can make yourself appear more attractive to women is by improving your body language. A study at UCLA showed that 93 per cent of communication is from “non-verbal” cues. Here’s some tips that you can use right away to improve your own non-verbal communication.

Start from the center

When we feel threatened, embarrassed or nervous, we tend to cover up one or more of:

• Our face, nose & mouth
• Our neck (by lowering out head)
• Our chest (by folding our arms)
• Our groin (by crossing our legs)

If you think about it, you’ll notice that all of these run in a straight line down the centre of your body. To fix this and appear more confident, think about keeping the center of your body open. Your head should be upright, your back straight, legs comfortably apart and your hands by your sides.

Hold your drink by your side

As in the first tip above,we tend to cover our chests when we feel nervous or threatened. Head to any bar or club on a Saturday night and you’ll see hoards of men standing around with their drinks across their chests like a kind of protective shield. If you want to appear more confident, hold yours low and by your side.

Smile

Confident guys who are successful with women tend to smile a lot, so if you want to have the appearance of being one of these guys you should do the same. Smiling’s contagious, so if you’re smiling, it’s likely she will be too.

Use eye contact, but don’t stare

Maintain eye contact with her as you talk and if she’s in a group, move your eyes from one person’s to the next. If you’re not used to doing this, choose one eye and focus on it as you and her are talking. Be careful not to stare though, that can be creepy!

Don’t lean in

Next time you’re out at a bar or club, watch some of the guys that are trying to pick up girls. Most men tend to lean in towards the girl they have their eye on far more than they actually need to. Although I do recommend not being afraid to be a little physical early on, there’s no need to lean towards her unnecessarily.

Remember the quote from the Tao of Steve “We pursue that which retreats from us”. Leaning in communicates that you are chasing her. Not doing it subtly suggests that you are “retreating”.

Keep those hands still!

Another sign that you are lacking confidence is excessively fidgeting and gesturing with your hands. When we’re nervous, we tend to move around a lot more than we normally would, as we’re afraid of losing the other person’s attention. So, if you don’t gesticulate wildly and keep your hands relatively still, it will help to communicate confidence.

A little trick – hook your thumbs in your back pockets. This has the extra benefit of making you lean back slightly, and you remember that leaning in too much is bad right?

Good, confident body language is far more important than the words you use when trying to attract women. Start using the tips above straight away and you should see a big difference in the way girls act around you.

In this article, I’ll break down the nuts and bolts of how to approach a girl you want to chat up. Don’t worry, I’ll include a few things you can say too.

Have an opening line prepared

As I’ve already mentioned, what you say is not nearly as important as you might think. I’ve met and dated girls where I have said the most ridiculous or the most inane things when I first met them. However, when you see that gorgeous girl across the room and you want to talk to her, your heart is pounding and your nerves kick in, I’ll guarantee you that you won’t be able to think of something to say. Sure when she’s gone and you’re left standing their alone, you’ll probably come up with many things you could have said, but it’s too late then isn’t it?

So, the first thing to do is think of something you can use in most situations so that when that situation comes along, you don’t have to think about too much. Here’s what I like to say:

“Hey, you’re gorgeous and I just had to come over and say hello. I’m Darren”

Those are the only words you need to know. Just grab your balls, and go and say it. Simple, eh?

If you’re not feeling quite confident enough to be that direct yet, just ask something simple like “Do you know what time this place is open until?”, or “Do you know any good clubs around here?” It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that. All you need is something to get over the first hurdle, and get the conversation started.

Now you’ve got at least one opening line prepared, let’s imagine you’re out at a bar enjoying the night and you see a girl that rocks your boat.

Don’t be creepy now

A lot of guys mess up before they’ve even opened their mouths, or before they’ve even got anywhere near the girl. There are a bunch of things I see men do, all with a common theme:

• Looking or staring at her for too long before doing anything
• Getting halfway to her then hovering around nervously before approaching properly
• Trying to force eye contact

There are probably more, but you catch my drift. The common theme is, they all show lack of confidence. And, we know that girls like confident guys, so that’s how you want to look.

So the first rule is, when you see her approach as soon as you can. If for whatever reason something is preventing you from doing this, turn your back and have fun with your friends so you don’t turn into the creepy stare-out guy. Get your head together, then turn back and go straight over to talk to her.

Excude confidence with your body language

I’ve read all kinds of complicated ideas around body language and what it says about you, but I like to keep things simple. When we feel nervous or threatened, we tend to cover a few key parts of our bodies – our face, neck, chest and groin. For instance, we might lower our head, cross our legs together or just angle the centre of ourselves away from the person we’re facing.

To appear confident, all you need to think about is keeping your face, neck, chest and groin open. Handily, they’re in a straight line from top to bottom so shouldn’t be too hard to forget. Imagine a pole running from the ground, through your body to the top of your head, holding you upright and open. Your arms should be comfortably by your sides, and your feet roughly shoulder width apart.

Finally, and possibly most important, smile. Smiling’s contagious, and every girl wants to meet a guy who looks like he’s having fun.

Slow it down

Nervous people tend to talk to quickly – it’s like they’re afraid that if they don’t get to the end of what they’re saying quickly, someone will interrupt them or people will stop listening. If you slow down when you speak and use pauses, it will make you appear much more confident.

Don’t be afraid of a little silence and for her waiting to hear what you’ve got to say. This can create a little tension, and that’s a good thing.

If at first you don’t succeed…

A lot of guys are scared of what will happen if they mess up, so avoid talking to girls that they like. Well, first of all, you have to mess up a few times to get any good.

Secondly, think about it for a minute. What’s the worst thing that can happen? Honestly? She ignores you, or brushes you off maybe? Don’t worry you’ll survive, even if your ego takes a little knock.

I’ll take a look at what to say after you’ve approached soon, but for now, why not go out tonight and see what happens?

For me, confidence is all about experience. The more you do something, the better at it you become and the more confident you become. It’s a virtuous circle. This applies to anything we do, including meeting women. Here are a few tips on how you can not only improve your confidence when meeting women, but also appear more confident when you’re not feeling it.

Practice, practice, practice

As I’ve already mentioned, the more you do something, the more confident you will become. Make a conscious effort to put yourself in situations that have previously felt a little uncomfortable in. Go out to a lot of bars, but rarely meet any women? Make a promise to yourself that you’ll speak to at least five new women the next few times you go out. Always see cute girls when you’re at the supermarket shopping? Talk to just one of them each time you go for the next month.

It will be a little painful at first, but stick with it, and you’ll gradually get better, and that will bring confidence.

Use confident body language

I teach a whole section on body language when working as a dating coach for men, which is quite difficult to go into in detail on a blog post, but there are a few things you can do very easily. First, stand with yoru back straight and head up – avoid the temptation to lean in towards people while ou are talking to them. When we feel threatened or nervous, we tend to cover three areas of our body – our face, our chest and our groins. Keep your arms comfortably by your side, and your legs a short distance apart – shoulder width is ideal – to avoid this.

Slow down

When we are unsure of ourselves, we tend to talk too quickly. Make a conscious effort to slow down when you are speaking, and then slow down a little more. Confident people talk slowly and clearly, as they are sure people will listen and are not concerned that someone might cut them off mid-sentence.

Smile

Not only does smiling make you appear more confident, but positivity is contagious. Wouldn’t you want women to feel positive and happy when they are around you? Then, smile more.

Think about how you can implement the advice in this article into the way you act, and you’ll soon see a difference ot just with the way that women act around you, but in many areas of your life.