Itâs very difficult to be objective about your own personality traits. In psychology, thereâs a bias known as the better than average effect. Put simply, it means most people think theyâre better than average in most ways: we think weâre smarter than average, we think weâre better looking than average, we think weâre more likeable than average, and of course, we think weâre less susceptible to biased thinking than average.

 

This isnât necessarily a bad thing, it feels good to think weâre better than average. But, this type of thinking comes at a cost. When thereâs a difference between what we think our personality is like, and what itâs actually like, itâs very easy to make the same mistakes over and over again, without knowing weâre making those mistakes.

Learning to be likeable shouldnât be hard, the steps involved are quite simple: listen well, show interest, find commonalities, be positive, and be honest. If you did all those things, youâd be one of the most likeable people in any room, and thereâs nothing intrinsically challenging about doing any of those things.

Self-Awareness

 

But, learning to likeable IS hard. Not because the steps to become likeable are complicated, but because we donât know what it is about us that isnât likeable. Truthfully, most of us think weâre good listeners, we tend to think weâre positive, and we tend to think weâre charming as hell- even if weâre not.

If people donât respond to you as positively as you like, if they donât seem to be charmed by you as youâd hope, itâs probably not for the reasons you think it is. Itâs probably something you’re not aware of, but that is obvious to others. Maybe you donât listen well, maybe you make everything in a conversation all about you, or maybe you take things to a negative place too often.

But it would be hard to admit that you do any of those things. Itâs not easy to be aware of our own negative personality traits, our ego is way too involved when it comes to our own likeability.

So, I could tell you the steps to becoming a good listener, I could tell you how to be positive, etc. but none of that advice would make much of a difference, because the underlying problem is that you donât know what it is that prevents you from being incredibly likeable.

Once you know what it is thatâs holding you back, itâs not that hard to change, but when youâre not aware of your own bad habits, itâs impossible to change.

Painfully Obvious

 

I went to my college campus with a friend to meet women and hopefully find a date. I noticed that every time he talked to a girl, she would look pretty uncomfortable. I couldnât tell what he was doing wrong from a distance, and he wasnât normally a creepy guy, so I decided to go up to a girl with him- to hear what he was doing that was so off-putting.

He introduced himself and shook hands with the girl (normal enough), but shortly afterwards, he said, âAre you 18 or above?â

She said, âUm, yeah,â and immediately looked uncomfortable.

He followed with, âThatâs perfect, so would you like to see me some time to go on a date?â

Of course, she said no.

Now, from an outsider perspective, thatâs obviously pretty weird. But heâs from a different country, and legitimately didnât know that he was doing something so uncomfortable.

Since then, heâs learned the culture better, and his interactions with women are much less awkward. But if someone didnât tell him that he was talking in a way that isnât relatable, who knows how long have would have kept making that same mistake.

You might not be making a social mistake as obvious as the above example, but chances are, you’re bad social habits are pretty obvious to the people you interact with.

For most of us, there are some very simple changes we could make to become exponentially more likeable, but itâs not easy to find out what it is we need to change, we are limited by our perspective.

Whatâs the solution? Itâs something a bit unusual, but wickedly effective.

 

How To Make Anyone Like You: The Technique

 

When I started recording videos for YouTube, I was full of nerves. It was extremely stressful to talk in front of a camera, and editing the videos made me cringe with discomfort. I noticed all my little bad habits: I would swallow when I was nervous, I would nervously look away from the camera again and again, and my tone sounded very forced.

Although it was uncomfortable watching myself, it was also an amazing education. I noticed countless mistakes I was making, and because I noticed them, I was able to correct them over time. Watching my own YouTube videos let me see myself from the perspective that other people see me from.

And although it was very uncomfortable to watch myself in the third person, it turned out to be the most useful strategy Iâve ever found for making changes to how I present myself to others.

Recording yourself is perhaps a bit strange, but itâs a powerful tool. Recording yourself on video is great, but itâs even better to record audio of yourself interacting with people in real life.¹

Look, Iâm not saying you need to do this every day, but just recording yourself a few times and then analyzing the audio can give you a lot of invaluable insights about your personality that you never would have noticed otherwise.

You might notice that you interject too much when someone else is talking, you might notice that you take a lot of opportunities to brag, and you might even notice that you sound arrogant. These are all things that I noticed in my recordings, and I had no idea about them before I listened to a recording of myself interacting with people.

If you want, you could let people know youâre recording the conversation, but personally I just use some headphones with a mic and leave the earbuds on the outside of my shirt (like people often do after working out).

You might think people would notice, but Iâve never had that happen, and if it did, I would just say Iâm doing a social experiment or explain what Iâm doing, no big deal.

I get that this may sound eccentric, but Iâm sharing it anyway because Iâve found it to be one of the most useful self-development tools Iâve stumbled on.

 

Wrapping Up How To Make Anyone Like You

 

When it comes to being likeable, itâs a lack of self-awareness that gets in our way and causes us to keep repeating the same bad habits day in and day out.

Taking just a couple hours to look at yourself objectively can give you invaluable information that may, at first, be a little embarrassing to notice, but can ultimately pave the way to real improvements. After trying this exercise, you might be surprised to find that becoming more likeable is much easier than you ever previously imagined.

 

 

 

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Footnotes:

1. Recording yourself on video can be useful, but how you interact with a camera is very different than how you interact with other people in real life. If you want to improve your presentation skills, watching your own videos is probably the best method. But if you want to improve your social skills in general, listening to recordings of yourself is probably the best method.