1. Don’t Try to Be Popular. It is a mistake to try and become popular. When we seek to impress others and please them, it inevitably encourages us to offer false flattery and think about what they want us to do and say. When we behave like this our ego comes to the fore, and we hide our real self. This kind of behaviour may temporarily impress some people, but, in the long term it is not sustainable. We have to base friendship on being our natural self, and avoid extravagant attempts to rise in other people’s esteem. 2. Think of Others more than you think of your self. People appreciate those who are considerate of others. If you only talk about yourself and your achievements, people will merely start to try and avoid you. We naturally respect people who are willing to spend time listening to others. This means offering goodwill to everyone, not just a select few who have a high social standing.
  2. Be Your self. It is a strain pretending to be someone you are not. When we seek to please others expectations there is an insincerity in our thought and actions, – people can soon see through this. If we learn to be content with who we are, we allow our natural spontaneity to come to the fore, this is what will naturally attract other people.
  3. Have a big Heart. Learn to be magnanimous in your dealings with other people, forget small mistakes, but appreciate the positive contributions that other people make. This is one of the most important factors in determining how people appreciate us. If we are always judging others with our critical mind, people will naturally feel slighted. If we go out of our way to appreciate the good qualities of others, then people will warm to our generous spirit.
  4. Reduce Your Ego. Do you seek to impress people, through appearing to be wise, and to drop names and important achievements into the conversation? When you magnify your ego, you only increase your popularity with yourself. If you can work without demand for outer recognition and praise, people will warm to your natural humility. Let actions speak louder words; if you do good things, there is no need to act as your own self publicist – you’re not a politician standing for an election. (It is interesting that politicians are very rarely popular, despite the fact they spend most of their lives trying their hardest to court popularity)
  5. Humour To gain popularity we need to be self depreciating and not take ourselves too seriously. Humour is one of the most significant attributes that people appreciate in others. It is said humour is one of the most important things women look in a man when choosing a relationship. This does not mean we have to be a stand up comic with a long list of jokes; in fact we should be careful of boring people with a long monologue of tired jokes.
  6. Follow Your ideals quietly. People look up to those who have a solid character with the attributes of honesty, kindness, strength and humility. But, at the same time these are ideals to be lived and not talked about. Quite often we see some people talking about how others should live a good life. Yet these proud moralists, may be better advised to concentrate on their own conduct before lecturing others. The secret of popularity here is to be honest and self giving without the necessity of correcting others. The most powerful way is to merely lead by example; if others follow, fine; if not that is fine as well. Photo by Ranjit Swanson, Sri Chinmoy Centre Galleries