Every situation has a silver lining – discover a mindset that heals and enlightens.
October 8, 2021 · 7 min read
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. - Dalai Lama
Have you ever been told that you look angry or annoyed even if you weren’t?
Have you noticed yourself that you look intimidating when you have no means to be like that?
It’s a common issue when your neutral face can look upset, angry, worried, annoyed, etc., without even you knowing about it.
It could be also that your general appearance might give false perception to other people that they’re not welcomed to approach you.
If you have figured it out already, that’s great! There are some things we can work on.
11 Signs of angry and annoyed look
If you can’t really tell if you have angry or annoyed look, here are the signs:
- Creased forehead
- Downturned lips
- You are very muscular and intimidating
- You are too well looking
- You wear dark, unwelcoming clothes
- You don’t show emotions
- You are depressed, anxious, worried, irritated, concentrated
- You have an intense gaze
- You don’t treat people well
- You think a lot negatively
- Unwelcoming body language
Some of these signs have to do a lot about stereotypes, such as being muscular, wearing dark clothes, looking too well, and similar. Some of these signs unconsciously make you change your facial expression, such as being concentrated or having negative thoughts.
Knowing how other people see you is important too. You could potentially ask someone you trust for an honest opinion.
10 Ways to deal with angry and annoyed look
1. Improve your body language
Body language assists to understand other person in many ways. It can be useful when another person is talking, eating, or even simply walking. There’s a lot you can tell from it.
Therefore, you should check if you notice any of these signs in your body language:
- Poor posture.
- Avoiding eye contact.
- Crossed arms.
- Extremely forced smile.
- Too much of eye contact.
- Overuse of hands.
- Looking at phone and other gadgets too frequently.
As an antidote, you should revert these aforementioned points and improve your body language. For example, if you are looking at phone too frequently, consider putting it down not to look that nervous or irritated.
Another example is avoiding eye contact – make sure you don’t look around too much when you are speaking. That only justifies that you are feeling uncomfortable and in some cases it might transfer to an annoyed look.
I almost get annoyed at the fact that I'm not going to use all that I got. - Jerry Lewis
Improving your body language takes time and patience. However, it’s a life-long skill to master and you’re going to see fantastic results even if you improve by 50% of where you are now. It will help you look more approachable, friendlier, happier.
Remember not to overburn with your body language. Try to tackle with one thing at a time. It’s much better to be consistent and slower, than being fast for a few days and dropping everything for half a year.
2. Avoid looking fake
It’s not that hard to notice if a person is faking his expressions too hard. It could be the case that it makes you look annoyed or even angry.
Looking fake comes from lack of experience and practicing your facial expressions. You might be coming from a background that didn’t require any expression of emotions. It could also be that you haven’t practiced some expressions very well.
Make sure to identify how you look like in the mirror first. Try to imitate your natural smile. If it looks awkward, practice it every day. Learning how to do a slight, generous smile can make you approachable in an instant.
Also, there are cases when people are trying too hard which makes them look annoying and unpleasant to have a chat with. Of course, you’ll rarely ever going to hear any complaints that they’re faking, but everyone knows that such person is faking.
Instead, practice looking generous and friendly. Have a slight smile (but not too exaggerated!) when you are listening to someone. You will look so much more welcoming and nicer to talk with.
Next step would be to practice having a slight smile when you are talking. It’s a little bit harder to do than listening to people, but it will give more warmth to your facial expression. Don’t overuse this method. If it’s not time to be joking around, just speak normally as you are used to.
3. Adjust your new neutral facial expression
Do you often wrinkle your forehead, frown, and close your eyes a little bit for no particular reason?
You might do other facial expressions that make you look intimidating. Try to identify them to be able to have a ground point which you should avoid.
Whenever you scroll through the phone, walk around somewhere, try to control your facial expression. It’s easy to wrinkle your forehead for almost no reason and have an annoyed and angry look.
“Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.” - William James
To combat this, try to be self-aware when you do any unnecessary facial expression. Sometimes it’s better to use your natural facial expression (even if it looks a little bit intimidating) instead of worsening it a couple times.
To illustrate this, imagine walking in a corridor of university and then noticing something interesting far away. That will make you narrow your eyes and look more concentrated. It could potentially translate to an angry look.
Definitely, when you are reading, learning, doing other activities at an appropriate time, you are free to use whatever facial expression you want. It’s going to be obvious that it’s your unique expression which you use when you are interested into something.
4. Relax
Another aspect that could make you look annoyed is because your body is in a lot of tension. You are dragging anxiety and stress with you everywhere which makes you look angry or worried.
Perhaps you need to get a break from everything and have yourself a good time. Consider doing something that you love and relieves stress off your body:
- Spa/massage session
- Do some outdoors jogging
- Go to bed earlier and have a good night’s sleep
- Meet your closest friends
- Write a journal
- Spend time for your hobby
5. Change your appearance
If you are used to wear dark clothes, consider varying them up and introduce some lighter colors in your wardrobe.
Black color, in general, is associated with fear, mystery, evil, aggression, rebellion, sophistication, strength. White color, on the other hand, represents cleanliness, peace, warmth, perfection, softness.
Therefore, one of the tweaks you can do is change up your style a bit.
Happiness is like a cloud, if you stare at it long enough, it evaporates. - Sarah McLachlan
Also, not only clothes have an impact on your general outlook.
Your hair, eyebrows can be something that you can change too. If you are bald, you might look more aggressive and angrier than comparing to those who have hair. You can try wearing a simple cap, fedora, or whatever else feels like appropriate depending on where you are going.
A strong eyebrow line can also make you look annoyed. Consider plucking and reshaping it a little so it softens your appearance.
6. Be less responsive about other’s opinions
We’ve all experienced situation when somebody had and told a negative comment about us and ruined our day. Depending on our personality, everyone handles such comments differently. Some people might swing it off, the others will look sad, annoyed, or angry.
Comments like “Smile more” or “Don’t look so tired and sluggish” might infuriate, especially if the commentor doesn’t run his/her life by the comments that have just been said.
My advice is to be less responsive about such comments. The reason for that is simple – proving the opposite will be nearly impossible, because it’s very likely that such people are ignorant and just throw silly comments without even thinking.
Not responding to such comments is not a sign of weakness. In fact, it’s a sign of strength and self-control. We secretly wish to have an ultimate reply to every bad comment about us, but the reality is that it’s not possible.
The only appropriate time to have a talk about this with the other person if he or she takes a relatively significant part in your life: siblings, family members, in-laws, in some cases co-workers. If you get that comment from a stranger that you’ll never see him in life again, it’s not worth the hassle. Be smarter than him.
7. Focus on your health
Frankly, health is the most important thing that you can have. As a result, it transfers to all your life sections: mood, feelings, actions, expressions… Taking care of your health and being active relieves stress and makes you happier and has general positive effects on your well-being.
If you are not getting enough sleep, you’ll naturally look tired, annoyed, angry. You’ll not only look so, but you’ll feel like that too.
"You must weed your mind as you would weed your garden." - Astrid Alauda
Make sure to incorporate some exercise and more nutritious foods in your diet. It will make you feel better about yourself and be more confident in your actions.
Being more confident will automatically transfer to a more happier look and you’ll be way more approachable to other people.
Being more confident will automatically transfer to a happier look and you’ll be way more approachable to other people.
8. Be more positive
You could also look annoyed and angry because of your negative thoughts that you express to other people.
Did you know that only 10% of your happiness and positive thoughts depend on the environment and 90% depends on how you perceive the world?
That’s what you are going to hear in one of Shawn Achor’s Ted talks. If you want to have fun and learn something new, I highly recommend watching this entertaining video:
Your well-being depends on the perception of the world that you have. If you feel like in a cage and nothing makes you happy or amused, then it’s likely that you need to change your outlook about the world.
You have to reverse this perception and start living more in the present.
Positivity is the essence of joy and happiness which translate to happy looks and successful communication. Positive thoughts also boost your productivity and efficiency.
This is the list what you should practice according to Shawn Achor:
- Be grateful. You have to write 3 things that you are grateful for in the past 24 hours.
- Journaling. Writing down about 1 positive aspect each day will make you relive this happy moment.
- Meditating. The essence of meditation is to focus only on 1 thing which helps you to calm your mind and concentrate better.
- Doing acts of kindness. To be happy, you have to make others happy. Consider writing a letter to a friend, volunteering, saying compliments to strangers…
- Exercising. Being physically active helps you to feel better about yourself and has a lot of other health benefits.
The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things. - Henry Ward Beecher
You should practice these points for at least 21 days to feel a flow of happiness into your body. It’s a matter of making it a habit and everything from then on will fall in place. The goal is to be beautiful not for the others, but for yourself.
This method leverages happiness to your advantage. Happiness is the key to improve in every aspect of your life, whether it’s your career, communication, relationships or other areas of life.
9. Initiate the action
The fact is, that you can’t please everyone, even if you are perfect by your standards.
For that reason, you have to find a circle of people that you are happy with. You don’t have to please every stranger or to attract everyone.
If you have angry looks, you’ll rarely ever be approached. To be fair, it’s hard to be approached by anyone in the western culture even if you look completely normal.
Therefore, try to spark a conversation with strangers and get to know them. As you’ll communicate with them more, annoyed or other looks will be insignificant because people will know you very well.
The most important thing is what’s in your heart and how you treat people. Looks matter the most at the first impression. After that, it’s nearly meaningless.
Therefore, the ultimate goal is to be with people that you are happy with and that accept you the way you are. Don’t try to change your looks if it feels too unnatural for you. Keep your identity.
10. Seek for professional help
Look for a therapist that can help you with this problem. An experienced therapist will have every answer in their book to help you. Also, face-to-face meeting (even if online) is invaluable and you’ll be able to clear your problem much faster.
If the case is severe where your looks make you feel depressed or anxious, look for help. With the help of a mentor, you’ll be able to solve your problems.
Final Words From Delightful Mindset
If you are looking angry or annoyed – it doesn’t matter as long as you have a social group that keeps you amused and you are excited to be with.
Remember that the ultimate goal of life is to be happy with yourself instead of pleasing everyone else around you.
Don’t sacrifice your happiness for the sake of others. Don’t try to change your appearance forcefully if that feels too unnatural for you.