In the context of our daily interactions and perceptions, an impression refers to the initial thoughts, opinions, or judgments that formed about a person, situation, or object based on limited information or a brief encounter. First impressions are often formed quickly and can influence subsequent interactions.
A lot of things combine to make up your impression of someone like how they are dressed, how they behave, or how they speak etc. But despite being it used multiple times in our everyday life an us being aware of how it affects our judgement, we have not truly mastered it. Not only can we not identify exactly how much of our decisions are based on pure logical reasoning and how much are simply reliant on our impression, but we also leave many things unkept in our own presentation thereby impacting our impression on other people we interact with. Maybe it is that overgrown beard, or that messy hairstyle or just the nervousness in our voice. Perhaps we have forgotten exactly how important a weapon this impression can be and so we have decided to leave things as they are. By the end of this article, I hope that you can understand what you are missing out on and can get inspired to use the psychology behind impressions to your advantage in all of your social interactions.
Your First Impression Lasts Forever
They say that you only ever get one chance to make a first impression in life. But, just because the first impression is made on that first encounter, it does not mean that it’s impact will be limited to that interaction as well. In fact, its quite the opposite. Your first impression is the only impression that not only matters but it lasts forever as well. Don’t believe me? Think of any important friend in your life or any other useful product or service that you find meaningful. If you have thought of something or someone important then you will also remember the first encounter you had with that thing or that person even if your current impression has evolved over the years. How many times have you heard your friend say that they did not think you would become such close friends with them based on your first interaction with them? It is because our first impression did not actually represent what our personalities had to offer but, that is all well and good with friends whom you had to see everyday for college or university. What about something much more rare like a job interview where your first impression will not only be remembered but it will also be significantly more important as you will not be given the opportunity to improve it over the years?
No matter what the interaction is about, be it a casual encounter or a professional appointment, remember that your first impression is once in a lifetime opportunity for you to show yourself in whatever light you want the world to see. You can shine as bright as you want or you can cower away to accept the mediocrity and not change the things that were in your control only to let fate decide your future. I, myself, have found myself giving up on many amazing opportunities in my life when I decided to choose the latter option and didn’t actively try to work on my first impression. So, I can only hope that you reading this can be better than me and start working on yourself more.
How Impression Shapes Your Expectations
Impression and expectations go hand in hand. If you have a good impression about someone than you naturally expect good things from them and vice versa. This level of expectation can also be translated as a level of trust that someone has in you or your capabilities. If your business leaves a good impression on the customers then guess who they will recommend once someone asks them for a recommendation? If your boss has a good impression of you then guess who he will consider when the next promotion is discussed?
I will tell you a story about how I used this trick about a good first impression to raise expectations and motivate myself to meet them. During college, whenever we started a new course with a new teacher, everyone had the same start. The teacher had too many students to care about each one individually so you needed to shine brighter than the rest to develop a trust with your teacher. I am sure I do not need to elaborate why this trust is important with all the assignments, projects and other favors that you can potentially need throughout the year. Nevertheless, whenever that first quiz or a test rolled around, I would prepare for it like my life depended on it and try to always get the best score. You have to realize that the best way for you to shine is to ace the first exam because, whether consciously or unconsciously, that first exam is also a way for the teacher to get truly introduced to his class. You can either fall into the sea of average mediocrity or go to one of the extremes. Even going to the lowest can make you stand out but only if you are also the class clown and funny(but that is not optimal for an introvert like me). So, the only option is to ace the first exam and leave a good impression on the professor. This raised the bar for myself as now the professor expected good performance from me so I had no choice but to study hard to meet those expectations. It got lengthy to write, but this was my system to keep myself motivated to do the hard work over a longer period of time. I am sure you can now realize that how leaving a good impression on someone can also serve as a continuous source of motivation that keeps getting recharged with each interaction.
How Impression Dictates Your Actions
Imagine you were walking down the street and you glanced on a homeless person. If your impression of him was that he was hungry then you would try to buy him food but if your impression was that he was cold then you would give him money to buy clothes or find shelter somewhere from the weather. Now imagine if you saw the homeless person come out of a luxurious car? Would you even consider the above two actions? Probably not. You would either think that it was a very weird way of dressing or look for the camera somewhere to ensure you aren’t being pranked by someone else’s research. Whatever your impression is about something will dictate your action in response to any interaction with it. If a suspicious person was to follow you, you will be concerned about your safety and take appropriate actions, but if your impression of hem leads you to perceive that he is harmless then you might not even notice that you are being followed, right?
If you can manage to lead a good impression on someone else in your interaction, no matter how small or informal the interaction be, you can also dictate the other person’s actions to go in your favour. If your impression on him is a trustworthy one then he will open upto you more or listen to your requests more sincerely but if he deems you as fickle then his actions will represent that as well. That is, if you asked him for a favour, he would be more likely to deny it or give you an excuse. There was a reason why the wolf had to wear the sheep’s clothing to get what he wants, right?
Privileges of a Good impression
I have talked a lot about why the first impression, or impression in general, is very important and that we should not overlook it just because of our laziness. But, what exactly are the perks that come along with leaving a good impression on someone else? We can find the answer in our everyday life pretty easily actually. Depending on how good of an impression you leave on someone, you can get anything from them in return. Lets take an interview as our first example; we can see that the better the impression an interviewee leaves on his interviewer. the better his chances of not only getting the job but also his desired salary package as well, right? In our second example, we can take the credit score that banks assign to each of their clients. This credit score is nothing but a financial impression that client has on the business of the bank. If it is exceedingly positive then you can take out a loan for whatever it is that you want to do, but if it is poor then you can forget about it until you improve it first.
While these examples are self-evidently important, I also want you to think that a good impression isn’t only confined to these few formal settings but you can also see it working in many informal and small cases as well. One of which is currently happening right now. You are reading what I have written because you think that it is something that is beneficial for you. Depending on how good of an impression you have of my posts, it will represent in how much you actually believe me. If you think that I am not genuinely trying to add value to your life then you will not bother giving it a serious thought and forget about this as soon as you navigate away from here, but if you have some kind of trust in this post, then you will actively try to consider working on leaving a good impression on others. This is the same for your favorite news channel, your favorite youtuber or movie director. But, it doesn’t just stop there. Have you ever given, or at least tried to give someone you know a good advice but only to have it brushed away before even being considered? The simple solution to this problem would be to be the expert on the subject matter that you are offering your advice on but it isn’t realistically possible to be an expert on all such topics and quite frankly, it is an overkill in most of our everyday cases as well. So, that leaves the second option which has been the theme of this section. If you are an overall impressive individual, then your advice counts way more than someone else who isn’t. For example, if you wanted someone you know to quit smoking, you can either be a doctor or you can just have your life in order i.e. you can be a regular gym goer whose discipline is visible to that person, and maybe have a job that you work hard at. It can be basically anything that makes you a productive member of the society rather than just a slacker who lazes around all day and does nothing. Other people can see when you put in the hard work and so they naturally come to admire that thing about you. If you offer advice after receiving such admiration then it holds more power and is likely to be considered by the receiving person as well.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, I want you to consider the power that impression can have on you and how you can use it to manipulate that power in your favour as well. Sometimes being aware of this can help you to look past the initial impression you have of someone and listen to what they are saying as it can help you to make the most optimal decision based on reasoning alone as I mentioned before. Other times, you can sharpen yourself in a way that you would like the world to perceive you and leave as good of an impression as you can to get to that successful position in life. So, it is time to invest in yourself and ensure that your clothes are clean and your hair are tidy to improve your visual image. And not only that but also improve to sound more confident and engaging. Be confident in yourself and you can infuse this belief onto others as well.
Do let me know in the comments if I was able to leave at least somewhat of a good impression on you with this post. Make sure to share it with someone else if it provided value to you. Have a wonderful day and thank you for reading!