Have you ever thought to yourself how powerful a smile is? It’s one of the simplest life hacks to increase your level of success. It’s something that a lot of us take for granted, yet it takes no effort at all to practice.

Everything you do and every habit you have created comes as the result of a decision. When you refuse to practice negative habits and adopt new empowering habits, your results begin to change, and your success starts to quadruple.

Don’t wait to be reminded to smile. Start smiling as much as you can and make it the one thing you do each day that is non-negotiable. Best of all, it takes almost no time to practice.

The seven ways smiling can quadruple your success are:

1. You feel awesome

A lot of your success is determined by how you feel in the moment. If you feel lousy, then chances are you are going to execute on actions that are in line with this state. One of the fastest ways to change your state is to smile.

Try putting a big greasy grin on your face three times a day and notice how different you feel.

2. It’s great for building rapport

Meeting someone for the first time can be daunting and often this first meet up can determine all your future interactions with them. I’ve started recently, making sure that I smile more when I meet a new person, and I’ve noticed that I am in rapport with strangers a lot more than before.

A smile is a great way to diffuse tension and show someone that you are genuine, kind, and loving towards people. By smiling you are scientifically proven to be more confident, appear more competent, and be more approachable.

3. It will help you with pitches

As an entrepreneur, you are required to pitch ideas, products, concepts, and people’s thoughts on a regular basis. When you complete these pitches with a smile, you come across as caring about what you’re doing. It’s also proven that smiling makes you come across as more trustworthy, which is 90% of a pitch.

A pitch is basically a disguise for the question “Are you trustworthy?” This doesn’t mean you should use smiling to tell lies, what it means is you should present yourself in a way that makes you happy, and in turn, makes you smile.

4. It will increase your confidence

Any situation you are put in on a daily basis can benefit from increased levels of confidence. Confident people are infectious and smiling is a fast way to become more confident. If you analyse the actions of a confident person, you will see that their body language and their facial expressions are all creating positives perceptions of them.

Like everyone, I have situations where I think I’m confident and then when it comes time to perform, so to speak, the confidence disappears. Before any important event, I have found that going into a situation with a smile gets me into the state I need to be in to be confident.

“When you have no strategy at all to succeed, just put a smile on your face and see what happens”

5. Smiling is a beautifully contagious disease

Go to a party, get around a group of people, and try smiling. What you will notice if you do this is that other people around you will begin to smile without realising what they’re doing. I need to get scientific again to demonstrate this point.

All of us have mirror neurons inside of us that respond to another person’s smile, and in turn, make us smile. This is why when you smile it’s like a contagious disease that everyone else picks up. Talk about being a catalyst for positive change.

Who knew all it took was a smile which is free and requires very little effort. Even when you smile and you don’t mean it, it still has the same positive reaction to your thoughts and feelings.

6. Endorphins are released

Smiling helps release endorphins into the blood stream that make you feel phenomenal. Endorphins are also created by intensive exercise and sex. Throw away the traditional pharmaceutical drugs because they are killing you and your success.

If there was ever a chemical drug for happiness, then it’s definitely endorphins. Smiling also helps lower cortisol levels which relieve stress, and makes you feel more relaxed. Do you think being relaxed, happy, and less stressed could help you be successful?

7. Smiling releases negative emotions and thoughts

It’s not hard to have a long day grinding away at your business and then come home with a bank of negative emotions and thoughts. When you’re mind is stacked high with these two things it can be very challenging to open the floodgates and release them all.

Smiling is one productive way to quickly release negative emotions and thoughts. As negative thoughts are released, more space becomes available to add new positive thoughts. Add meditation into the mix and you have a powerful cocktail to squash almost any unwelcome feelings that come your way.

Hacks for smiling

1. Go out with friends that make you smile
2. Watch a comedy act that makes you smile
3. Listen to a podcast that puts a grin on your face

How are you going to smile more? Do you think smiling works? Let me know in the comments section below or on my website timdenning.net and my Facebook.