LinkedIn Influencer Bruce Kasanoff published this post originally on LinkedIn.
If you want people to like you, be 100% comfortable in your own skin.
Hands down, there's no more attractive quality than a person who is utterly comfortable with who they are. This quality transcends physical appearance, intelligence, education, income or personality. It is the cornerstone of success in business and in life.
Here's the best news of all: your internal "comfort level" is not fixed; you can change it.
In the spirit of complete disclosure, if today you are insecure and self-critical, overnight you are not going to change into George Clooney. But you can certainly move in the right direction, and the more that you do, the more other people will like you.
To make progress, you need to do three things:
1. Accept your qualities you cannot change. Don't waste any psychic energy on things such as how your parents raised you or whether your feet are too large. (If this is a sensitive point for you, I apologize and mean no offense.)
2. Recognize your ability to change is FAR greater than you once thought. You can't change your height, but you can change how hard you work, how grateful you are for your blessings, how open you are to new ideas, how you approach difficult challenges, and how willing you are to pay the price for what you most want in life.
3. Be persistent. It takes time to build confidence and competence. Invest the time, even on days when you feel as though you are sliding backwards.
To generalize a bit, no one likes incoherent thinking. We hate it when an attractive person complains about being unattractive. We dislike hearing someone make empty promises over and over again. Although we may not understand exactly what's happening, we are not attracted to people who have obvious internal conflicts.
Or at least I'm guessing that's what happens. All I know for sure is that people love people who accept who they are. You know what I mean: we've all seen people with obvious limitations utterly charm a room, because they focus on their blessings rather than on their curses.
There are ten million theories (a rough guess) about ways to be likable; most are hopelessly confusing and complex.
This one is pretty simple: accept yourself, and others will do the same.
More from Bruce Kasanoff:
- Nothing Is More Beautiful Than Trust
- How I Solved The Messy Desk Problem
- Are You Overmeasured And Underappreciated?