Do I need to explain why making friends and being liked is important? Hardly, it's obvious that when nobody likes you, life sucks. Even if you did accomplish the feat of the century, it would seem dull without someone else them to share your accomplishment. Not to mention the sharp pain, and sense of worthlessness you get from feeling alone in the world. Life is much better when you have friends. You have more fun, you have people to share your experiences with, and deep down you have that secure feeling that lets you know that someone has your back!
There's one problem though...
Being liked, and wanting to be liked, contradict each other. It is difficult to have both simultaneously, because if you want to be liked you have to be unafraid of being disliked.
This is called being authentic. When asked how to make friends and be liked, most people will give you the common advice, "Just be yourself." This sounds similar to being authentic, but it's not quite the same thing.
When you have low self confidence and you try to "just be yourself." You aren't really being yourself. You're being the persona that you've constructed in order to protect your "authentic self" from more hurt. Often this persona that you're being is a nice, mild mannered person, but this persona never takes any risks, it never steps outside of a certain comfort zone for it fears being rejected by others.
An authentic self does WHATEVER it wants to do regardless of people approve or not. Your authentic self never hesitates to bust a move on the dance floor, or charge up to that attractive person you saw, or reprimand someone for being rude. It does not concern itself with social expectations. Your authentic self does what it wants when it wants.
When try to make friends with people, and you "just be yourself". Often times, you are extra nice to other people. That seems like the appropriate response doesn't it? But people do not like when they are being treated nicely by someone who has an ulterior motive. People do not like to be around others who have a hidden agenda. Furthermore, when you get addicted to being nice for approval all the time, often you start to tolerate bad behavior. Once you start rewarding bad behavior with niceness, people lose respect for you.
Authentic people are not necessarily nice. They are kind, caring, sincere, and fun - when the time calls for it. They speak their own minds, and whoever agrees with them will agree. Authentic people are not nice for the sake of making people like them, they treat people nicely when people deserve to be treated nicely. Most people want to be friends with this authentic person, because they have to earn his or her respect. People place a higher value on that which they must earn.
Often times when you "just be yourself", you care what other people think of you. Authentic people only concern themselves with what they think of themselves. It's not that they are conceited. Authentic people simply know their own self worth, and do not let other people try to tell them their own value. When you care what other people think of you, and then you act in order to win people over, people view you as try hard, needy, and insecure. Authentic people simply do what makes them happy, and people like them all the same.
Here are some step by step tips for being more authentic:
Speak your mind. Don't hold back because you are afraid to offend. People will respect your honest opinion.
Don't care what other people think of you. If you are convinced of your own value, people will be convinced of it too.
Do what you want, when you want, don't hesitate in order to please other people.
Don't care what other people think of you. If you are convinced of your own value, people will be convinced of it too.
Do what you want, when you want, don't hesitate in order to please other people.
Being authentic is truly the best way to make friends and be around people who genuinely like you. As a bonus, you chase away only the people who have bad intentions. People love authenticity. We are evolutionarily programed to respond to it.
When you are authentic, even your weaknesses become strengths in other people'.
ARTICLE SOURCE:CALEB CLAYTON
