General thoughts on improving your nonverbal communication
Some of your nonverbal communication is influenced by your mental state. Your body language is naturally going to be different when you’re feeling nervous and uncertain of yourself compared to when you’re cheerful and self-assured. As your confidence and social skills get better, some of your nonverbals will improve automatically.
Your body language may become more open and inviting, or you’ll find it easier to hold eye contact. However, some nonverbals are ingrained bad habits. For example, even if you become more comfortable around people, you may still find you consistently fail to look them in the eye, and you’ll have to try to correct this more directly. It takes time to improve aspects of your nonverbal communication.
When people realize they have poor posture, for example, they often consciously vow to carry themselves differently. They can typically only keep it up for a few days before it gets too physically and mentally draining, their focus, discipline, and enthusiasm wear off, and they move on to other things. If you really want to see improvements in an aspect of your nonverbal communication, you have to give it more time and make it a priority project, to the point where you schedule frequent practice sessions for a few months.
It’s not enough to just occasionally remember, “Oh yeah, I should stand up straighter.” If you have several issues with your nonverbals, you should try to tackle them one or two at a time, not all at once. It’s often distracting to try to monitor and adjust your nonverbals while you’re socializing.
If you’re working on your conversation skills, you can’t exactly throw “practice using open body language” into the mix and expect to do either well. At first, try to work on your nonverbals in situations where you can put your spoken communication on autopilot (for example, while talking to a cashier).
As your new nonverbals start to feel more effortless and automatic, you can push yourself to use them in situations where you have to think on your feet more.