Eye Contact carries immense importance in any interaction - formal or informal.
Eye Contact plays very vital role in non verbal communication
Eye contact is mutual gaze where both people look at each other at the same time.
Maintaining eye contact signals genuineness
Confident eye contact can work wonders on how other people perceive you.
Making eye contact tells the person that you respect them, acknowledge their presence, and are interested in the conversation.
By making eye contact, you will improve the quality of your interactions.
If you find it difficult to maintain eye contact with people, you could consider trying the tips below.
Draw an imaginary inverted triangle on the other person's face around their eyes and nose.
Another trick is to imagine a letter “T” on the listener’s face. Start from his left eyebrow, move towards right eyebrow and come straight on nose
The person with whom you are interacting with will still feel that you are maintaining an eye contact. Once you are comfortable in conversation you may continue with normal eye contact.
Try to keep your eyes focused while you talk as well as listen.
Looking up when you're talking is sometimes thought to suggest that you're lying, while looking down is sometimes thought to signify confusion on your part. For this reason, it's usually best to look straight ahead, even if you're feeling uncomfortable and can't keep your eyes making contact.
More than 7 seconds eye contact could be considered to be staring.
Post 7 – 10 seconds break eye contact and resume again
Break your eye contact to nod, or make other gestures while listening
Practicing Eye contact
Use practice sessions to remind yourself to make an eye contact.
A big part of making eye-contact is just remembering that you're supposed to.
If your natural inclination is to stare down at your shoes, try to practice when you're alone to realign your natural response to gaze by focusing your eyes on faces. This can be done on television, in the mirror
Focus on making eye contact with the characters on the screen
Try looking up YouTube blogs and other videos in which people make eye-contact with the screen.
If you have a close friend who you enjoy talking to, try using Skype.
You could even practice making eye contact and smiling and saying hello to people walking towards you. This is a great confidence booster and can put you in a happy frame of mind