Are you a teenager or a young adult who keeps getting treated as a kid who doesn’t understand much about “more important” worldly affairs? If yes then this article will teach you how to look older than you are.
Looking older than your age isn’t a matter of makeup, wearing expensive clothes, or even shooting abusive slurs through the mouth -being grown up is about portraying maturity.
Let’s take a look at some essential tips for teenager and young adults to look older than their age:
- Wear your confidence on your sleeves.
In order to give off an air of maturity, confidence is not only important, it’s essential. Even if your body structure and personality give off your real age, being confident makes people sit up and listen to what you are saying.
One’s physical appearance only goes so far in speaking of their matured thinking. Ultimately it is what you literally say that really contributes to your image that’s projected in the eyes of any third person.
- Body language speaks volumes about who you are.
Just go out with your head held high and straighten your back to tell the world that you know how to hold yourself together. Slouching doesn’t help you, or everybody else who is out to judge everybody else.
Shake hands with a rock-steady grip, while looking directly into the eyes of the person across you.
- Be friendly, cordial and welcoming.
Expressing any teenage angst in front a third person tends to make them take you lightly while rubbishing away anything you may have to say, substantial or not.
The whole idea behind maturing is to be practical before all other conflicting impulses. This also means that regardless of somebody saying or doing something to warrant your scorn, you need to let it go and move on.
Talk to everybody around you and be diplomatic. Try to get along with everybody from your juniors to even your seniors. Let yourself be recognized as a calm and composed opinionated, yet civil individual.
- Wear clothes that compliment your personality.
We all have those periods in our life where we adore certain celebrities, be it musicians or movie stars. There’s nothing wrong with that, but does that really mean that we should impersonate them with clothes and other fashion accessories.
Get rid of all the “cool” for namesake attire that most of your friends probably subscribe religiously to. Yes, this requirement extends to all those loose-fitting, multi-colored, and torn pieces of clothing we all must fortunately grow out of eventually.
- Males can grow facial hair, while girls can begin wearing some classy accessories.
Teenage boys and young men can try growing some facial hair. There’s nothing that tells the world of the impending end of your teenage and childish years like the swipe of shaving razor. A word of caution though – it doesn’t necessarily look good on everybody.
Girls and young women on the other hand can try on some faint makeup and even begin wearing accessories, like traditional Indian earrings and bindis if possible.
- Improve your diction and vocabulary.
Pick up a good dictionary and begin reading at least 10 new words everyday. The fact of the matter is that the way we speak is a quintessential factor in the formulation of what we know casually as the “first impression” anybody builds about us.
There’s a reason why it’s said that “the first impression is the last impression”. It gets extremely difficult to shake another person’s mind from these initial first moments of interaction.
Most young adults and teenagers tend to overdo the usage of certain phrases and words such as “whatever”, “like”, etc. Stop doing so right this very moment!
- Be graceful.
Now we aren’t telling you to be a ballet dancer, but it is important to be graceful nevertheless. What we mean here is that it is important to be mild-mannered, diplomatic and a good listener.
Should you choose to be overtly aggressive there are good chances that the more mature lot wouldn’t want to be around you.
- Lastly, do not overdo it!
Now this is a tough one to explain completely, but we know you will probably understand the idea. All of us like to judge others who try too hard to be something they are not. Our advice: try not to be on the receiving end of this ridicule.
We would like to believe that these tips on how to look older than you are will help you to get away from the being subjected to the angst-ridden stereotype typical to teenagers. Let us know your experience as a teenager and a young adult looking to appear older in the comments below.
