Many of us view charisma as something that other lucky people have. We feel that perhaps these skills are genetic and either we have it or we don’t. But if you talk to a few of these people, many of them will tell you that they had to overcome many obstacles in their lives. Often times, some of those obstacles are social such as shyness, stuttering, speaking in a crowd and so forth. This directly implies that charisma and charm are learned skills.
Admiring the Charismatic Skills of Others
Most people know of a few acquaintances that have the ability to go into a room full of people and be the center of attention within a few minutes. This scenario is a big reason people feel that charisma is something that comes natural to certain people.
The good news is that regardless how much charm and charisma you currently have, there are steps you can take to make yourself more charismatic. And many of these steps are very simple.
9 Ways to Have More Charisma
1) Learn good posture
The first thing you should do is be aware of how you carry yourself. Thus, make sure you are erect and have great posture. This provides a very strong way to express yourself nonverbally. And when your posture is good, you convey confidence and feel more confidence.
This vibration of confidence will become part of you and your communication with others. Being charismatic means communicating to others in confident manner.
2) Do not be afraid to use physical contact
Recently, there has been some talk about the personal space of others and how to manage that in a politically correct way. This is discouraging an important part of communication – which is physical contact.
Knowing when to touch others are you communicate with them is actually an art. But if you want to be charismatic, you must learn when it is appropriate to touch others and when it is not.
The most important thing about touching is you must be comfortable and confident in doing it. If you are reluctant, then you will convey that to the other person and make the whole experience awkward.
3) Learn to read body language
This is so important. Everyone needs to understand the most basic nonverbal clues. There is nothing more awkward than to watch someone try to extend a conversation with someone who obviously wants to politely walk away.
Learn to read how people are responding nonverbally to your communications. If they cross their arms or legs, or turn their shoulder to you, then they are not interested in your message. End the conversation gracefully – they will respect and appreciate you more for being in tune with them.
4) Know how to use humor
Humor is a very huge in communications with others. The big reason is that most of us can relate to humor and love to laugh. There are three things you must remember when using humor: 1) You must know when humor is appropriate and when it is not, 2) You must be careful about the content of your humor so as not to offend your audience, and 3) You must understand the amount of humor to use – if you use too much, people will not take you serious and that’s not good.
5) Learn the Art of Asking questions
A charismatic person understands that others love talking about themselves. This is why they ask questions, so the other person keeps talking about themselves and to keep the conversation going.
Secondly, asking questions allows you to probe the interests of others and find the common interests that both of you share. This allows the conversation to deepen, build rapport, and maximizes the social.
6) Be a good listener
This tips compliment the last one. As you get the other person talking, you must tune it and listen to their word. Understand the importance of being an active listener – this is vital to cultivating good communication skills.
7) Remember the names of others
It is amazing how many of us fail to remember the names of others. Those who remember the names of people that they meet receive huge levels of admiration. Ask people in sales how important the names of others are. The irony is that doing this is relatively simple. There are countless methods out there to help us remember names better – find one and starting using it now.
8) Use your hands to express yourself
Like some of the other tips we have listed, using your hands while communicating is also an art. But remember that a huge part of having charisma is enhancing your ability to communicate. Strategically using a few subtle hand gestures will make your communication skills more powerful. And like everything else in life, the most you do it, the better you get at doing it.
9) Clean up your verbiage
This is a great way to polish up your communication. Start becoming aware of verbiage that you use which is either distracting or unnecessary. I am talking about words like “uh” or “umm” or “you know”. Now understand that using these words are habits that you have had for a very long time. So start easing them out of your verbiage, but don’t beat yourself up when you slip up every now and then.
