If you are struggling with eye contact, chances are you are struggling in many other areas of your social life too. So, if the eyes really are the windows of the soul, in this this episode we will pull back the curtains to examine the five levels, and revealing the one to aspire to...

In my nearly fifty years of life, the last twenty of which have been dedicated to personal development, I can define my descent into a world of shyness and social anxiety by two incidents of eye contact.

The first was at the age of six. I was still a very confident and outgoing child when I let my friend in on a secret game I used to play, where I would challenge myself to hold my gaze with others until they looked away first.

In child parlance this would be called a staring contest, but in this instance, I was the only one playing. As soon as others would look away, then I too would divert my gaze.

Fast forward by about fifteen years to the second memory. By now I was a shadow of my former self, shyness and social anxiety had eaten away all my confidence.

I had left school and home by the age of sixteen without any qualification, and now I was alone in the world and working in a shop. My co-worker turned out to be a wife beater, to say I had poor adult role models was an understatement. But that's a different story...

Whilst standing behind the counter one day, looking down and wrapping something for a customer, I suddenly sensed her leaning over until her face was at the same level as my gaze, she looked me in the eyes and forced me to look back as she straightened up.

By this time, being able to look people in the eyes, let alone have staring contests, was long behind me. I felt humiliated and angry by what she had just done. But for her part, she didn't know me or my issues, she just wanted her respect, her acknowledgement.

This incident very much defines the first level of eye-contact, so let's take a look at the different levels now:

Level One: Eye-contact anxiety (10%- Contact)

Barring any conditions such as autism, or cultural differences, if youre struggling badly with eye contact it’s it’s for neither of these reasons, chances are you have eye contact anxiety.

At this level, low confidence and conditioning makes you feel less equal than others, feelings like being a child in an adult world where you would naturally behave subserviently to the grownups. This feeling is also known as imposter syndrome.

After a few seconds, it can feel like the other person is looking directly into your soul and learning too much about you - too quickly. Like a hostile foreign power downloading all your defence secrets.

When we realise what is happening, our heart rate increases as the fight/flight response is triggered, causing our gaze to take flight from that of the other person.

Where that flight ends up, is usually on, or near, the ground, somewhere near the level where your self-esteem lives. 

Level Two: Scattered (30% Contact)

At level one, avoiding mutual eye contact is such a habitual thing, that you're barely aware of it. Even to the extent of walking down the street without ever taking your eyes off the ground. But at level two, you are consciously aware of your own eye contact avoidance behaviours.

Being consciously aware is the key difference here because you know that frequent eye contact is a valuable communication skill, so you consciously try to increase it.

But trying to hold that direct eye contact for more than those initial few seconds, can feel like two magnets repelling. And it can feel impossible to maintain that direct gaze when someone elses attention is directly on you.

There can be two reasons why an someones attention is scattered. Either they are not interested in talking to you, and want to find someone else to come to their rescue, or they are also struggling to maintain effective eye contact with you.

If the other person is playing hide and seek with their eye contact, and you want to know which reason it is, look to the rest of their body language, because low confidence leaks out through multiple body language cues. 

Level Three: Conscious control (50% Contact)

At this level, you make good eye contact with people when you are speaking, and you can hold it for short periods of time. Not too short, not too long so you don't come across as awkward, shy, creepy, aggressive, or any of that good stuff.

You even throw in some head nods and a positive facial expression or two.

The problem is, a thousand books and articles told you how difficult it is to get the right balance. and how you will be condemned as rude, arrogant, timid etc if you are off by a second or so. 

The result is become paranoid at measuring out the right levels of eye gaze to the speaker, how and where to look on their face (didn’t you read somewhere that you’re supposed to imagine their eyes as an inverted triangle and then look somewhere in there?), and while all this paranoid churn is going around in your mind your attention to what they are actually saying, is now more compromised than a politicians promise.

Level Four: Eye contact rapport (70% Contact)

You are at the optimal level of mutual gaze with people, and you are here because you’re no longer calculating the percentages, or worrying about sending out shy or creep vibes. You occupy level four because you are confident, and confidence doesn't worry about the opinions of others. 

Instead of judging when to look away, a well-developed emotional intelligence allows you to become attuned with the other person so you can converse with rapport.

Eye contact rapport can best be visualised as a casual tennis match warmup.

If the other person is lobbing the ball for long leisurely bouts of eye contact, you match them.

If they are hitting from mid court, or closer to the net for shorter bouts of eye contact, match them.

If the other person drops their gaze quite frequently, you instinctively drop your own gaze more often, to ensure they don't feel dominated. (save that for the real game of tennis :)

By using eye contact rapport, you will no longer have a problem with cultural differences. Should you find yourself in Japan for instance, where direct eye contact can be interpreted as rude, by naturally mirroring your japanese hosts, you will have no problems.

A good conversation takes place on a level playing field, and if you are approximately mirroring the other person in their eye contact, they will feel more comfortable in your company. And that's the essence of mirroring.

Level Five: Epoxy eyes (90%+ Contact)

I came across the term 'epoxy eyes' many years ago, and from a published author who had achieved a good level of credibility. Which is what made this strategy all the more appalling.

As epoxy eyes suggests, this means gluing your gaze onto that of the other person, and not taking it off again until the conversation is done. 

At this level, you are no longer confidently operating at a subconscious level, you are not operating with any social or emotional intelligence, you are consciously and aggressively trying to dominate the other person.

Okay, so dancing on the flippant side of life here, but also with all seriousness: Stop reading any more hints and tips articles about eye contact, such as the following tip I recently came across...

OMG right?  As we discussed at level three, the more consumed you become by thinking about how long to look, where to look, how to look etc. the less conscious attention you will have left over to actually hear what the other person is saying.

And whatever attention you DO have spare, is probably going to get eaten up by the paranoia of how other people are apparently judging you when, inevitably, you mess up on those damned Mississippi’s. 

What came first, the confidence or the eye contact? The two are linked, low confidence means low eye contact. Good confidence means good eye contact. You can't have one without the other as the song goes...

Low confidence and self-esteem are woven into your subconscious, while pithy little eye contact strategies are things you would have to do consciously.

But here's where all the self-help books and articles are missing the bigger picture - the subconscious is to the conscious mind, as the ocean is to a glass of water. 

In other words, the subconscious is vastly more powerful. So why try to overcome eye contact anxiety with a glass of water, when you should be learning how to sail in your own personal ocean of subconscious? If its not working for you, then it’s out of control and working against you.

Once you begin to develop confidence, you will naturally begin to rise up through the five levels, until holding the right level of eye contact is something you do instinctively, because your subconscious is doing it for you, just like breathing.

And where would we all be if we had to start thinking about how to breathe?

The answer to that question is that the human race would be extinct after about two minutes. But in case you're wondering how to go about developing natural confidence, the main two ways are (and always have been), knowledge and practice. In that order. 

That includes knowledge about your job, subjects and hobbies that interest you, such as food, politics, personal development etc. Also, very important, is knowledge about yourself, your values, beliefs, and ideas about life.

This is it, this is how it's done. Until you have confidence in yourself and what you stand for as a personal brand, uncertainty, and insecurity will continue to pollute your ocean, and choke your confidence like an oil slick.

Conclusion

So here it is, you can either try to develop more eye contact by using conscious strategies such as

1. Remembering to look at people 50% of the time while YOU are speaking, 70% when they are speaking

2. Focusing on just one of their eyes, or 

3. making a triangle out of their eyes and nose, and focusing inside the triangle 

4. defocusing your gaze while looking at them

5. Counting to between three and five seconds then looking away

6. hooding your eyelids a little when you want to flirt…

Or you can save your sanity and develop your self-confidence first, and let the eye contact naturally follow.

That said, I’m not going to let you go without sharing one of my own eye contact strategies. I like it because it requires very little conscious processing power.

Trying to go from zero eye contact, to fifty or seventy percent in one go would be too much of a shock to the system, so go for ten percent baby steps instead with the following strategy:

When you first meet somebody and feel that irresistible need to drop your gaze, instead, fight the urge for just long enough to identify the colour of their eyes.

Most people will leave a conversation never knowing the colour of the other persons eyes, but just by distracting yourself with this little mission, you will have held contact for ten percent longer than usual.

What's more, the other person will be completely unaware of what you are really doing, unless it's a romantic encounter and you want to complement them on their eye colour. In which case, you can expect to score some nice brownie points, or should that be green, blue, hazel...

In conclusion, work to develop your confidence in other areas, and better eye contact will naturally follow until it is just another of your subconscious life skills.